A Google Doodle honored Mary Golda Ross on the 110th
anniversary of her birth, Aug. 9, 2018.
THE COMMEMORATIVE COIN The earth-bound achievements of Mary Ross will be the centerpiece in early 2019 of a new coin honoring American Indians in the Space Program. Each year since 2009, the United States Mint has produced and issued a $1 coin that celebrates significant contributions Indian tribes and persons have made to the history and development of the United States. Ross will represent both her own work and that of several other prominent Indians, such as astronaut John Herrington (Chickasaw) and flight controller Jerry C. Elliott High Eagle (Osage/Cherokee). Herrington manned the International Space Station in 2002. Elliott plotted the re-entry of the troubled Apollo 13 mission and received a Prsidential Medal of Freedom for his role in saving the astronauts. The Ross proposal, like many of the Na-
tive American $1 coins, started as a narrative provided by and design concepts developed in consultation with the National Museum of the American Indian. The Native American $1 Coin Act requires consultation with the Com- mittee on Indian Affairs of the Senate, the Congressional Native American Caucus of the House of Representatives, and the National Congress of American Indians. Once the de- sign concepts are defined, the Citizens Coin- age Advisory Committee (CCAC) discusses them during its public meetings. Emily Damstra, an American freelance
science illustrator living in Guelph, Ont., was selected to create the design for the 2019 coin.
She explains, “I first learned about Mary Gol- da Ross upon receiving the assignment to de- sign this coin celebrating the contributions of American Indians to the United States space program. Her achievements deeply impressed me, and I was excited for the opportunity to tell her story through numismatic art. From the beginning of my design process, before I had anything else worked out, I knew that my design would include a figure of her.” Dams- tra’s only regret is that she could not fit in a feather into her design. A figure representing American Indian
astronauts is included, she says, because, “I knew Ross was not the only American Indian who contributed to the space pro- gram. Though we don’t see his face, the astronaut in my design is outfitted as John Herrington would have been for extrave- hicular activity. I liked the idea of including an astronaut in space because such a feat was ultimately made possible by the work of people like Mary Golda Ross. “I came up with the general design ele-
ments pretty quickly,” she admits, “but the de- tails and configuration went through several iterations before being finalized. For example, I originally drew Ross using a Friden calcu- lating machine, but it looked too much like a typewriter so I replaced it with paper, a pencil and a slide rule. Ross undoubtedly employed these tools while working on the Agena rocket program at Lockheed Martin. The small tools may not be obvious at coin size, but their pur-
pose is evident in the large equation inscribed across the Atlas-Agena rocket exhaust behind Ross. I’m very grateful to NASA for providing that equation.”
INSPIRING THE FUTURE
Although humble, Ross herself likely realized the important legacy of her work. After retir- ing from Lockheed at age 65, she pursued her interests in engineering by delivering lectures to high school and college groups to encour- age young women and Native American youth to train for technical careers. In 2004, at age 96, she attended the open-
ing of the National Museum of the Ameri- can Indian building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Wearing a traditional green calico Cherokee dress she had asked a niece to make especially for the occasion, she marched in the opening procession of 25,000 Native people. Said a friend, “She felt she was a part of history being made, again.” She herself said, “The Museum will tell the true story of the Indian, not just the story of the past, but an ongoing story.” Ross died four years later, a few months before her 100th
birthday. She
lived long enough to see her work help launch an American Indian astronaut into orbit. X
Herman Viola serves as senior advisor for the Museum’s National Native American Veterans Memorial Project, is curator emeritus at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and is a member of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 21
IMAGE COURTESY OF GOOGLE
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