Remember to get the "12 Days of Christmas" tune in your head...

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .

Four women astronauts . . .

Yep, it's true. Of the 24 Ohio astronauts, meaning astronauts who were actually born in Ohio, 4 of them are women. Since I could only think of 3 Ohio astronauts in the first place, I was stunned to find out that there are 24. And, after reviewing the list and looking at their pictures, it seems like I may have met one of them, Sunita Williams. Sunita was born in Euclid, but moved soon after and grew up in Massachusetts. No matter. She has an Ohio birth certificate so that's enough for her to qualify for my list. When I was teaching in India, she came as a guest speaker with another women astronaut to talk about being an astronaut, I think, but perhaps I'm hallucinating, so don't hold me to it.

Nancy J. Currie still lives in Ohio and considers Troy her stomping ground-- well, Troy and space. She's been on four space shuttle missions. A veteran of four space shuttle missions, she has accrued 1000 hours in space, the last on STS-109 in 2002.

Judith Resnik was born in Akron and died in the Challenger Space shuttle disaster. I forgot that, so I was momentarily taken back when I rediscovered this fact. Before her death, she first took off for space in 1984 on August 30, 1984, my birthday. This was the birthday, I happened to be celebrating in Santa Monica, CA. Normally, I don't keep track of my birthday in such a way, but I had just gotten out of the Peace Corps-metaphorically, my own trip to space.

Mary Ellen Weber is no longer an astronaut; she resigned and moved to Dallas, Texas to be Vice President at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Her tenure at NASA is impressive. She first headed to space in 2000 on the STS-101 Atlantis. Although Weber no longer lives in Ohio, her mother lives in Mentor. Weber was born in Bedford Heights near Cleveland.

You can read much more information about these four women, plus the women who now live in Ohio who are astronauts-plus details about the men astronauts on the NASA website. Here's the link to Ohio's page.