PHOTO: MICHELLE M. MURPHY/NASA GLENN RESEARCH CENTER
When Kelly Gilkey was in high school, she sent an email to astronaut Pamela Melroy, asking if it might be possible for a person with a hearing loss like Gilkey to become a NASA astronaut.
“Amazingly, she responded and said the sky was the limit,” Gilkey recalled. “If NASA could fly astronauts who needed glasses to see clearly, who was to say what might be possible some day?”
Gilkey got her first chance to work for NASA as a participant in Entry Point!, the American Association for the Advancement of Science s internship program for undergraduate and graduate students with disabilities in science, engineering, mathematics, and computer science. As an Entry Point! intern, she worked at NASA Glenn Research Center and NASA contractor Wyle Laboratories.