SHELBYVILLE, Ky. — According to NASA, they will soon land “the first woman and the first person of color on the moon using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.” The Artemis Mission is going back to the moon for a new generation of explorers.
One Shelbyville native gets to be a part of history in the making. That comes as no surprise as Alora Mazarakis learned to shoot for the stars at a very young age.
“When I was a little kid, I always told my dad I wanted to go to school at NASA. That was my thing I told him,” Mazarakis said. “Obviously you can’t go to school at NASA.”
So Mazarakis did the next best thing and got a job with NASA. “I really wanted to work in space, that was really my dream,” Mazarakis said.
At first, Mazarakis didn’t think that was an achievable goal. “So I thought I’ll do a kind of a backup plan which is more realistic, I was going to become a dentist,” Mazarakis said.
Although Mazarakis wasn’t born in Kentucky, she grew up in Shelbyville where she attended Martha Layne Collins High School. From there, she went on to graduate from the University of Louisville Speed School and then to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where she earned her master’s degree.
Lucky enough for Mazarakis, the Artemis Program was looking for a radio frequency engineer.
“The experience of talking on the loops and the loops are all the different channels that are spoken on when you’re talking to astronauts or launch control or even mission control,” Mazarakis said. “So I had experience doing that and had experience being a radio frequency engineer.”
So all the stars aligned. Mazarakis now serves on a team of engineers with Artemis 1, the first of a series of NASA missions with hopes of extending human existence to the moon and beyond.
Before humans break new space barriers, Mazarakis and other women are going boldly where few women have gone before.
“In the Apollo program, I think there was one woman in launch control and now not only is there me and several others, our launch director, Charlie Blackwell Thompson is also a female,” Mazarakis said. “To be representing not only engineers in the new space race but also women and to be doing so alongside so many amazing, fantastic, talented women is just such an amazing feeling.”
She’s defying the odds while living her dream.
NASA is targeting their next launch for Artemis on Nov. 12-27. You can follow along with the Artemis Mission by clicking here.