Sian Cleaver said the “Essex girl” stereotype has never held her back as she pursued her dream of becoming an astronaut and working on a spacecraft that would take humans to the moon.

The 36-year-old from Chelmsford, Essex, works as a space engineer for Airbus in Germany, which built the propulsion system for the Orion spacecraft in NASA’s Artemis II mission.

Until 2020, the Oxford Dictionary described an “Essex girl” as an “unintelligent, promiscuous and materialistic” young woman.

“I don’t think these kinds of stereotypes have ever bothered me. I’ve never worried about attaching myself to particularly feminine things,” Cleaver said.

“I don’t think trends have ever bothered me because I’m very far from them,” she added.

Cleaver said she was always interested in astronomy when she was a student at Chelmsford County High School and later studied physics at Durham University.

She encouraged girls and women to ignore stereotypes and follow their dreams.

“If you have big ambitions and feel like people are holding you back, do it anyway.

“I always wanted to be an astronaut and that’s always what inspired me and drove me and I still have that dream,” he said.

Artemis II was It’s supposed to be released in February.but after a previous test flight revealed a technical problem, it was delayed and now the next possible dates are early April.

Four astronauts, including Christina Koch, will take the spacecraft to orbit the Moon on a 10-day mission and hopefully become the closest humans to the lunar surface since 1972.

Koch He said he wanted to become an astronaut after seeing a photograph of Earth taken by Bill Anders, a member of the Apollo 8 mission crew in 1968.

Cleaver said: “I want to see the first woman walk on the moon. Artemis II will see a woman orbit the moon.”

“Diversity must be visible”

The Artemis II crew will travel to the Moon powered by the European Service Module, which includes large solar panels manufactured by Cleaver and his team in Bremen.

Cleaver said women were working on the project, however, they were a “minority.”

“Diversity brings different perspectives and a different way of working and it is a real shame that it is not as visible,” he added.

Cleaver said she gives talks at schools because “it’s good for young people to see women doing jobs like mine. So when they start thinking about these jobs in the future they don’t automatically imagine a man doing them.”

“There are definitely not enough role models, especially at the highest levels,” he added.

More than 9.4 million people work in Stem across the UK, but women make up 25% of this workforce, according to Women in technology.

“I’m still very excited and passionate about space and that’s what motivates me.

“I feel like I have to try harder and fight harder compared to some of my peers and that has always frustrated me.

“I feel like I have a big responsibility because I feel like there are younger women who look up to me, but I wish I could look up to more younger women, too.”

“The fact that we are going back to the Moon means that there is a whole generation of people on this planet who have not experienced a moon landing and we are about to experience it again,” he said.

“I feel very privileged to be a part of making history.”

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