CLEVELAND — Dr. Kathy Sullivan has always been an explorer.
The three-time astronaut was the third American woman to ever fly in space. In 1984, she became the first American woman to spacewalk 140 miles above Earth. Thirty-six years later, Dr. Sullivan dove more than 35,800 feet beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The feat made Sullivan the first woman to reach outer space, and the deepest part of the seas.
Simply put, Dr. Sullivan is an inspiration for many.
“Well, I think it's one of the greatest and best privileges that come with earning the astronaut label is that it opens hearts and minds and in many, many ways,” said Sullivan.
It was an oceanography course, her freshman year of college, that turned this linguistics major into a record-setting scientist.
“It was it boiled down to this is really fascinating me. I don't know what to do with it. I'm really good at languages. What are you guys do? What is being oceanography mean? There's something under that stupidly put question or that naively put question. And, you know, you have a moment, just a moment to decide whether you're going to laugh at or ridicule the idiocy, the naivety, the overly simplistic or are you going to pick out what's underneath there and grow it a little bit,” advises Sullivan.
“How does it make you feel to know that you're the inspiration for future generations?” 3News' Betsy Kling asked.
“It's pretty easy for me to spot something in a young kid story that you've got at least some empathy for, or maybe dabbled with a little bit myself,” Sullivan said. “And It's a huge boost of confidence for a youngster, I think maybe even for any of us, some bit of affirmation from a person, from an older person or a person we've admired a bit that just sort of endorses that. You've got some good stuff in you. You know, that sounds like an interesting track. Yeah, go get them.”
“Something we all just need that, just somebody to identify in us what we can't see ourselves,” remarked Kling.
“You get to decide if they're a hobby, a passing fad, the thread of a life's work that's up to you. And I think really the seed that grew in me was nobody gets to edit your interests. Now the world is full of people. Many of them may well have an opinion about your interests and whether you should have those interests or not. But an opinion is just a puff of air. Unless you give it some power, so they don't get to edit what you're interested in,” said Sullivan.
Thanks to the International Women’s Air & Space Museum for hosting the interview. The consul behind Dr. Sullivan is from NASA Mission Control and was used during the Apollo and Space Shuttle era.
You can see Betsy Kling's entire interview with Dr. Sullivan below: