Hey short waivers, this holiday season, we have a little present for you.

It features an astronaut who we really admire.

Ellen Achoa, she's made history many times over. She was the first Hispanic woman in space

and spent 30 years at NASA. First as a research engineer, then an astronaut,

she eventually became head of the Johnson Space Center. Even with this long and distinguished

resume, I think one of the most amazing things about Ellen's career is how she responded to a moment

of crisis. Changing NASA's workplace culture in the aftermath of the 2003 Columbia Shuttle disaster.

Today we bring you an excerpt of her conversation with Guy Ross, host of the podcast,

Wisdom From The Top. Have a listen and enjoy.

I guess it was 1985 when you decided to apply to be an astronaut with NASA. But first of all,

where did that idea even come from? How were you even thinking about that?

Well, so in 1981, this was sort of the end of my first year at Stanford. That was when the

Shuttle flu for the first time, from 1981. And that made huge news. I mean, the US hadn't flown

in space in a few years. And of course, this was just a completely different kind of spacecraft

than it ever flown before. It wasn't a little capsule. It was this sort of big, beautiful space

craft that looked like an aircraft. And it had the capability of doing so many different kinds of

things. And a lot of what it was going to be doing in space was science research. And a couple

years later, when I was right in the middle of my PhD, Sally Wright flew in space. And that was a

huge deal. People often ask, hey, did you want to be an astronaut from the time you were a little kid?

And I said, well, you know, I grew up in the Apollo era. And of course, everybody was talking about

it, but nobody would ever ask a girl, do you want to grow up to be an astronaut? Or, you know,

why don't you think about doing that? So, you know, it was a big deal in 78 when the first women

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