'Rosie the Rocketeer' visits space station wearing Levittown 'Rosie's' mask and bandanna
Rosie the Rocketeer headed to the International Space Station on Friday aboard a Boeing Starliner spacecraft, wearing a red and white polka dot face mask and bandanna provided and signed by Mae Krier of Levittown, one of the original Rosie the Riveters who worked for Boeing during World War II.
Krier watched the liftoff Thursday night on NASA television and when the broadcast showed the signed bandanna that she had provided NASA around the head of the model astronaut, she was thrilled.
"Wasn't that amazing. I got goosebumps for what they did," she said after the launch. She had signed the bandanna "to the moon and the stars."
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The Boeing Starliner launched with the robot astronaut called Rosie for this unmanned flight to the space station. The flight was supposed to have happened last year but a problem with valves forced a delay. The Starliner docked safely with the space station Friday night. It is expected to return to the Western United States in a few days, NASA reported. If that is successful, its next flight may have real astronauts aboard.
In the meantime, Krier, at age 96, is taking a flight of her own next week to the Netherlands with her great-granddaughter Courtney Krier to visit World War II sites as part of an honor tour for those who helped our country during the world war.
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Krier, her sister and a friend were original Rosies when they left their native North Dakota as young women to work in a Boeing factory in Seattle making B-17 bombers to help in the war effort.
She met her future husband, Norman, who was a Navy sailor there and the couple moved to Bucks County after the war.
Since the 1980s, she has worked to have all the Rosie the Riveters honored for their work with the Congressional Gold Medal. She lobbied members of Congress while wearing a red polka-dot bandanna similar to the one illustrated on the head of a woman in an iconic 1943 poster called Rosie the Riveter.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, Krier could no longer travel to Washington to visit Congressional offices but she started making polka dot face masks.
She received more than 5,000 requests and the mask crusade helped her efforts to have the Rosies receive the medal. Bucks Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey went to bat on her behalf, convincing their colleagues to vote for the Rosies to receive the gold medal. Congress approved awarding the Rosies the medal in 2020 with former President Donald Trump, in one of his last acts in office, signing the approval into law.
Boeing then decided to name its flight robot Rosie the Rocketeer and asked Krier to provide a mask and bandanna for her to wear into space.
"I was stunned, absolutely stunned," she said last year when Boeing President and CEO David Calhoun announced the plan in a Zoom meeting with Krier, Casey, Fitzpatrick and eighth-graders in the Pennsbury School District.
"It's so exciting," Krier said Thursday following the launch as she talked of how blessed she has been to see the medal awarded and to visit sites both in the United States and abroad where those who served in World War II are being honored.
And she's hopeful that what she and the other Rosies have accomplished will be an inspiration to others. "It's so nice for women and young girls to realize what they can do," she said.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: NASA launches 'Rosie the Rocketeer' wearing Bucks County 'Rosie's' mask