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IRA
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When I was asked to speak to this group, I did something that I don't normally do -- I agreed immediately... partly because you're meeting right here in San Diego [], but primarily because I share your belief in the importance of reading and the value of books.

This morning I'll describe the space shuttle program and my involvement in it... and [[strikethrough]] I'll [[/strikethrough]] I've also decided to try a small experiment: to try to communicate the essence of one of NASA's most important projects through the words and selected photographs form one of my children's books. The NASA [[strikethrough]] project [[/strikethrough]] program is called "Mission to Planet Earth", and the book is called "3rd Planet -- exploring Earth from space". [This experiment also gives me the opportunity to exploit the advantage that astronauts have over other speakers: we have good pictures!]

First, some background. For the past several years, I've been actively involved in efforts to encourage and motivate young students (particularly girls) to study science and math. I've found that writing children's books is one way to share my fascination with science, and to spark a child's interest [[strikethrough]] and lead her [[/strikethrough]] to explore some of mysteries of the world around her. 

I believe, by the way, that it's important to stimulate an appreciation for science in all students-- not just those who may go on to become geophysicists, cosmochemists, or rocket scientists. Science and technology have become so interwoven in our daily lives that some level of scientific literacy is becoming important for everyone. You can't open a newspaper without reading about global warming, the toxic waste dump down the road, [[strikethrough]] rainforest destruction and the consequent extinction of plants that may have had valuable medicinal properties, [[/strikethrough]] or the next generation internet and its implications for your privacy.

So... its [[it's]] important that children have interesting, informative, and stimulating windows onto the world of science-- that it, it's important that they have access to good books! [Incidentally, I also think its [[it's]] valuable for students to see