Ellen Ochoa, SDSU graduate and first Latina to travel in space, awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

President Joe Biden awards the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to Ellen Ochoa.

The La Mesa native also was the first Hispanic director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center

May 3, 2024 4:57 PM PT

Astronaut Ellen Ochoa, the San Diego State University graduate who became the first Latina to fly in space, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Biden during a ceremony at the White House.

The La Mesa native was one of 19 people to be recognized Friday with the nation’s highest civilian honor, which is given to those who have made major contributions in areas ranging from world peace to improving the prosperity and values of the United States.

The other living and deceased recipients included such prominent figures as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, television pioneer Phil Donahue and civil rights activist Medgar Evers, who was honored posthumously.

Biden said Ochoa’s four flights aboard the space shuttle helped lead to “a whole new age of space exploration, improving what it means for every generation to dream to reach for the stars, and get there.”

Ochoa graduated from Grossmont High School in El Cajon in 1975, then enrolled at SDSU, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in physics. She went on to earn a master’s and a doctorate in engineering at Stanford.

She had an early love of science but didn’t always envision where it would take her.

“I mean, it was the summer right after I finished elementary school when Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the moon,” Ochoa told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2020.

“Of course the whole country was watching, and it was amazing — but you know, honestly, I just could not conceive of that as a career,” she said.

Her attitude changed. In 1985, she applied for entrance to NASA’s elite astronaut corps. She didn’t get in then, but she was accepted in 1990 and became an astronaut one year later.

She was on a path to fame. In April 1993, Ochoa soared into orbit aboard the shuttle Discovery, becoming the first Latina to travel in space. She made three more shuttle flights, two of which involved visits to the International Space Station. Ochoa logged nearly 1,000 hours in space, a feat achieved by few space explorers.

That wasn’t the end of her career. In 2013, she was named director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the home of Mission Control. Ochoa was the center’s first Hispanic director, a position she held until she retired from the space agency in 2018.