IT’S been inspirational watching the first pictures of Nasa’s Perseverance parachute onto Mars.

Just last Thursday, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover landed on the Jezero Crater to collect samples of rock and regolith as well as search for signs of ancient life. It sent back the first video of its landing to Earth just two days ago. Looking at these incredible images of the surface of the Red Planet is mind-blowing for us mere mortals.

Back on planet Earth, as well as the sheer awe-inspiring nature of this space programme, the one thing that really struck me during the TV coverage was the many women involved in the mission, both on the main team and in the mission control room on the night of the successful landing.

The woman leading Nasa’s Mars 2020 guidance and controls operations is Swati Mohan, an Indian-American woman, who first came to America when she was just one year old. It was Swati, sitting in mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California last Thursday who announced to the world “touchdown confirmed ... Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking the signs of past life”.

In a wonderful moment of life imitating art, or more popular culture in this instance, apparently Mohan first become interested in space through watching Star Trek episodes as a child. This kitsch sci-fi TV show introduced her to the wonder of the universe and new worlds. She went on to complete her mechanical and aerospace degree at Cornell University, followed by a Masters degree and doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She ended up at Nasa and the rest, as they say, is history – less “where no man has gone before”, more “where more women intend to boldly get involved!”

Mohan started working on the Mars 2020 mission back in 2013. She told USA Today: “I’ve been on Perseverance longer than I’ve been at any school. I’ve been on Perseverance longer than my younger daughter is alive. It’s just taken up such a large portion of my life for so long.”

She’s not the only woman to devote her career and a large chunk of her working life to this incredible mission. In fact, one look at the Nasa team reveals an organisation brimming with not just women at top levels but of a diverse mix in terms of sex and ethnicity.

Now Europe wants to get in on the act. The European Space Agency (ESA) is looking to recruit new astronauts for the first time in over 10 years and they plan to encourage more women and disabled people to apply. It’s all part of a push to improve diversity in their space crews, to invite applications from all walks of life, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or faith.

With only one woman currently in their International Space Station team, the agency is keen for women to apply for these new jobs and plans to set up a Parastronaut Feasibility Project to explore the inclusion of disabled astronauts on their crews. The agency says it wants to open “the door to a certain part of society, so they too can dream of becoming an astronaut”.

Helen Sharman, the UK’s first astronaut and the first Western European woman in space, has praised this new initiative from the ESA. The agency has only ever sent two women into space, Samantha Cristoforetti and Claudie Haignere. Now they are following Nasa’s example to ensure their staff are representative of the vast diversity of the continent of Europe.

Just last autumn the ESA signed a collaborative agreement with Nasa to facilitate sustainable exploration of the Moon and the two agencies plan to work together on the Artemis Gateway lunar outpost, a stop-off station en route. As part of this Artemis programme, Nasa plans to land the first woman and next man on the moon by 2024. It’s fitting that Artemis was of course the twin sister of Apollo, the name of the first space programme.

There’s still much work to be done to ensure proper representation and diversity in the field of space exploration. But this industry is changing in an effort to realise that talent is not confined to one sex, one creed, one colour. This change of heart needs to be across the board – from the back rooms to the cockpits.

Examples such as Nasa not calling it “manned” spaceflight anymore, rather “human” or piloted, or redesigning space suits to fit female forms are signs that movement is very much in the right direction. They’re even changing the name of their headquarters, to name it after Mary Jackson, the first black female engineer at Nasa, whose achievements have been hidden for decades.

This is women in STEM in action. I’m sure Scotland’s burgeoning space industry is watching this all very closely.