Ellen Ochoa, born May 10, 1958 in Los Angeles California, would become the first Hispanic female astronaut.  She was raised in La Mesa with a large Hispanic population, where Ochoa’s family wanted her to go into music; but with her fascination with science, she took a different path. 

Ochoa graduated from San Diego State University at the top of her class. However, she was rejected from the Nasa training program initially.  She wasn’t willing to give up so she trained for a pilot’s license and reapplied; on her third attempt, she was finally  accepted. 

After completing the  two year NASA training, Ochoa was accepted to serve as mission specialist.  In April 1993, she became the first Hispanic woman to enter orbit in the space shuttle Discovery and with that she was also the first person to play the flute in space. 

She wasn’t done there,  Ochoa went on four more other missions making her spend a total of 1000 hours in space; and in 2013, she became the first Hispainc women director of NASA  Johnson space center in Texas.