Born: August 9, 1915, Elk City, Oklahoma, USA
Died: November 2, 1998, aged 83
Field: Astrogeology, lunar mapping, planetary geology
She started out mapping oil-bearing rock formations in Oklahoma, at a time when almost no women worked as professional geologists in the state at all. Decades later, that same eye for reading terrain helped NASA decide exactly where the first crewed lunar lander should touch down.
The making of the first female astrogeologist:
West earned her bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of Oklahoma in 1937. Through the 1940s, she worked as a petroleum geologist in the Oklahoma oil and gas industry. She became the first woman hired as a consulting geologist in the Oklahoma City area. The local paper at the time dubbed her a “feminine fossil finder.” She later joined the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona, becoming the first woman geologist hired there.
Also read: Rosalind Franklin: The Scientist Whose Images Helped Reveal DNA’s Structure
Picking a landing spot for Apollo 11’s lunar landing
By the late 1960s, the stakes of West’s work had grown considerably. NASA needed to choose a landing site on the Moon that was flat enough, stable enough, and safe enough for a fragile lunar module to touch down without disaster. In 1969, West was the only woman on NASA’s Geology Experiment Team for Apollo 11.
Drawing on her analysis of lunar surface data and imagery, she pinpointed the landing site used by the lunar module Eagle — the spot where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history on July 20, 1969.
She didn’t step away once the site was chosen. West watched the landing from Mission Control in Houston, stayed on through splashdown and the astronauts’ return, and then turned to studying the lunar samples and photographs they brought back, using them to revise existing maps of the Moon’s surface.
Also read: Santiago Ramón y Cajal: The man who drew the map of brain
Mareta West’s legacy
West’s career traces the arc of a field that barely existed when she started: geology of other worlds. She helped build the observational groundwork that made a successful crewed lunar landing possible, at a moment when there was no real precedent for the calculations involved. Her work also stands as a marker for the generation of women scientists who broke into fields, and NASA programs, that had never employed a woman before them.
After her death in 1998, her cremated remains were carried into space aboard a memorial spaceflight — a fitting return, given a career spent studying worlds beyond our own.
Quick facts about Mareta West:
- First woman consulting geologist in the Oklahoma City area (1940s)
- First woman geologist hired by the U.S. Geological Survey in Arizona
- Widely recognized as the first female astrogeologist
- The only woman on NASA’s Geology Experiment Team for Apollo 11
- Selected the landing site used by the Apollo 11 lunar module, Eagle, on July 20, 1969
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