Sharing
the Rewards
Beland has nothing but raves for the team she worked
with to resolve the bolt problem. "I felt proud of this work, proud
of the team." It's great to be in the home stretch, too. "It's like
when you finish something, you succeed at something," said Beland.
She finds it rewarding to present her work as well. "You share what
you've done for so many months or years with the scientific community
or your colleagues that's a great moment."
Recruiting
Engineers
There's a "a great solidarity" among the female
engineers according to Beland. Still a minority, she'd like
to see more women in her field. To that end, she conducts tours
at the CSA and gives talks to young people. She wants them to
think, "OK. She succeeded. This is feasible even with children.
It's fun. You travel. You meet people. You're doing something
great."
 Helping
Our Fragile Planet
"From space, we can see how thin the atmosphere
is, like an onion peel." Beland tells children that space is a
helpful place where "we can do things that we cannot do on Earth,
so we can manufacture new materials, develop new processes, develop
new medicines." While most children would love to be astronauts,
not everyone gets to suit up and blast off into space. She stresses
that "there is other work that needs to be done on Earth so it's
really teamwork on the ground."
Team
Earth
With the arrival every few months now of new components, the station
will continue to build up and out. And piece by piece, it's becoming
"basically, a new star in the sky." And this is not a new star
from another galaxy or time and place, but a star created by one
team better known as "Planet Earth."
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