Though she never won a Nobel Prize, the astronomer Nancy Grace Roman earned an accolade likely to give her even more cachet among tomorrow’s scientists: In 2017, Lego AS released a Women of NASA set including a plastic likeness of Dr. Roman.
By the time she was 10 or 11, she was star-struck. Her family had moved in the mid-1930s to Reno, Nev., where she found the skies were exceptionally clear. She toted a pocket book called “Seeing Stars” and started an astronomy club for girls.
Some of her teachers doubted girls were cut out for science and math. She stuck with her plan, earned a Ph.D. and in 1959 became the first chief of astronomy at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. She helped persuade Congress to fund what became the Hubble Space Telescope.
By the time it was launched in 1990, Dr. Roman had retired from NASA, but colleagues dubbed her the mother of the Hubble. The $2.5 billion telescope, the size of a bus, was launched seven years behind schedule and way over budget. Astronauts had to repair its flaws. Still, it gave scientists a clearer view into the mysteries of the universe and dazzled the general public with crisp images of distant galaxies.
Dr. Roman died Dec. 25 at the age of 93.
An only child, she was born May 16, 1925, in Nashville, Tenn. The family moved around the country as her father pursued his career as a geophysicist. Her mother was trained as a music teacher.
Dr. Roman recalled in a 1980 oral history that her mother “used to take me out at night and show me the constellations and the Aurora and things like that. But she also showed me birds and trees and animals and plants.”
Nancy Grace Roman was featured in the LEGO Women of NASA set, which launched in 2017. Photo: Lego
After graduating from high school in Baltimore, she earned a bachelor’s degree at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and her doctorate in astronomy at the University of Chicago. In the 1950s, she worked at the Naval Research Laboratory.
When she joined NASA in 1959, the agency was only about six months old. “It was a great place to work at that time,” she said in a 2017 interview with NPR. “Everybody was gungho.”
Dr. Roman never married and had no children. After retiring, she was active in the American Association of University Women and frequently encouraged young people to consider scientific careers. She was always willing to sign her Lego figurine for young fans.
Write to James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com
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