As a young woman at the height of the Space Race, Ms Morgan was compelled to play a role in a burgeoning industry after watching the launch of the first United States satellite, Explorer 1, in 1958. Eleven years later in 1969, she would be the only woman in the control centre for the history-making Apollo 11 launch and human moon landing.

Today, Ms Morgan is celebrated for her 41 years with NASA – when she paved the way for women in her roles as the first female NASA Division Chief, director and senior executive at the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida.

It was her passion for maths and science and her family’s encouragement which drove her to embark on her own mission into a space never before conquered by women.

“In high school, I was lucky to go school near Cape Canaveral in Florida and I saw the first US satellite launched … and thought, this is the neatest thing that’s happening in my lifetime, so I’m getting in on it,” Ms Morgan said.

At just 17 years of age, Ms Morgan worked as a summer engineer’s aide at the US Army Ballistic Missile Agency, and just five days into the role, was involved in her first launch.

“I've just got rocket fuel in my blood,” she said.

“My family was immersed in the rocketry world. 

“It was just a natural thing and I was treated with acceptance and respect by those people because they knew me and knew my family and that made a huge difference in my early career.

“I don't think a lot of women in the late 1950s and 1960s got the acceptance and respect they have gotten in later years.”

However, she still encountered sexism, recalling the difficulties of speaking up as a young woman in a room full of men.

“Most of the time I was the only woman in the launch control room and in meetings,” she said.

“You had to rise above comments and people not wanting to work with me, many of them military officers, who were wanting to treat me like some dumb bimbo.

“Being a pretty young woman made you somewhat vulnerable, but I had a good upbringing and I was the eldest child with two younger brothers, so I knew how to work through that.”

Fortunately, her natural talent, knowledge and experience demanded respect.

“By the mid 60s, I already had a lot of experience. I'd been part of a launch team, so they had to listen to me,” Ms Morgan said.

“If you have knowledge and experience, you get the respect.”

Reflecting on four decades with NASA, Ms Morgan said the moon landing remained a highlight.

“The nice thing about my job as instrumentation controller was, after lift-off, once the Apollo rocket had cleared the tower and once we were into the translator injection phase, my job was done,” she said.

“Once they were on their way to the moon, they took over and executed the mission. So I had a great vacation with my husband!

“In the middle of the night, we watched it on television with the rest of the world. 

“The actual landing was a joy because all this work that I had put in for seven years, I got to see the result. We actually landed a human on the moon and got him safely back.”

For 15 years, during the 1960s and 70s, Ms Morgan was at the forefront of NASA’s major space launch teams as part of the Apollo program, Mercury and Gemini missions, Skylab launch and Apollo–Soyuz mission.

She then studied at Stanford University in the 1980s and served in a string of executive positions with NASA, before retiring in 2003.

Now 77, Ms Morgan is thankful for her “fearless” attitude in those early years.

“It's a great career for women,” she said.

“Because I was there, (women) saw that a woman could do it and now, there are a lot of young women who are engineers and scientists at NASA.

“I was glad to be a trailblazer because I didn't know any better.

“I'm forever grateful  because I got to be a part of profound history making.”