D6 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2019Every time astronauts put on an American
spacesuit to conduct a spacewalk at the In-
ternational Space Station, they pass
through a portal installed in part by Janet
Kavandi.
It isn’t the only thing the former astro-
naut did that changed the work of her suc-
cessors in space. After three missions to or-
bit, Dr. Kavandi moved into NASA adminis-
tration, eventually overseeing how astro-
nauts were selected. She is credited with
adding fairness to a process that for the first
time chose an astronaut class that included
as many women as men.
So when Dr. Kavandi, 60, retired on Sept.
30 as director of Glenn Research Center, a
Cleveland facility that designs innovative
technologies for NASA, she left not only a
legacy in human spaceflight, but also a
moon-size hole for the agency to fill.
Roger Handberg, a space policy expert at
the University of Central Florida, called her
a role model for women serving in leader-
ship roles at NASA in the future.
“That next female is not plowing new
ground,” he said, “just going down the al-
ready existing path.”
Dr. Kavandi said she was leaving for per-
sonal and practical reasons. At 60, she was
eligible for retirement, and she also looked
forward to earning more income for her
family at Sierra Nevada Corporation’s
space systems division.
Her departure comes as NASA is switch-
ing into higher gear to meet a mandate set
by the Trump administration of returning
American astronauts — the next man and
the first woman — to the moon by 2024. It
also was announced following other major
personnel changes.
In July, Jim Bridenstine, NASA’s adminis-
trator, reassigned William Gerstenmaier, an
official who for years oversaw human
spaceflight. Lawmakers criticized the
move, and some analysts saw the change as
a demotion. In April, Mark Sirangelo joined
NASA to aid Mr. Bridenstine on the Artemis
moon mission. He left after just 44 days.
Last year, Mr. Bridenstine sought to have
Dr. Kavandi nominated as the No. 2 official
at NASA. “I was fully aware that this was
not in any way a ‘done deal,’ so I had no ex-
pectations,” she said.
President Trump instead nominated
James Morhard, a former deputy sergeant-
at-arms in the Senate with no previous
space technology experience.
She said she was not disappointed that
the deputy administrator job went to Mr.
Morhard.
But her retirement leaves NASA with one
fewer woman in senior leadership. Lori
Garver, NASA’s former deputy administra-
tor and founder of the Brooke Owens Fel-
lowship, which matches undergraduate
women with aerospace industry intern-
ships, estimates that fewer than 15 percent
of the agency’s top roles are filled by
women.
“When there is such an imbalance at the
top, the culture tends to favor men, and
women often struggle to be heard or have
their views taken seriously,” she said.
NASA said diversifying its leadership
and astronaut corps was a priority.
“The agency’s continued efforts to diver-
sify the STEM pipeline will ensure women’s
important contributions to NASA will grow
and will inspire the next generation of lead-
ers,” said Allard Beutel, director of publicengagement and multimedia.Missouri to Orbit
As a 6-year-old, Dr. Kavandi stretched
across her parents’ back porch in Cassville,
Mo., and stared at the stars. She wondered
if, from up there, she could see her house.
Her father told her one day she could find
out: Humans were already exploring space,
he said, looking down to Earth from cap-
sules zipping across the sky like shooting
stars.
“I kept that in the back of my mind for my
entire life,” she said, “until it became possi-
ble for me to apply.”
She pursued bachelor and master’s de-
grees in chemistry at Missouri Southern
State University. Above her desk, she hung
a chalkboard sign and wrote “never give
up” in block letters, then tacked a picture of
the first untethered spacewalk by Bruce
McCandless beside it.
“Just to be free-floating up there, no
tether to the shuttle, I thought that was so
cool — to be a satellite yourself,” Dr. Ka-
vandi said.
She later worked as an engineer at Eagle-
Picher Industries, and then Boeing. While
working there, she also pursued a doctor-
ate. For her dissertation, she developed lift
pressure-sensitive paint for airplanes,
which would later be awarded a patent.
“She did not take no for an answer,” said
James Callis, professor emeritus at the Uni-
versity of Washington and her academic
adviser.
In 1994, Dr. Kavandi was one of 2,962 can-
didates to apply to the 15th corps of astro-
nauts — and one of only 19 people and just
five women to be accepted.
When she shot into space in 1998 on the
space shuttle Discovery’s last trip to Mir,
the since deorbited Soviet space station, the
force pulled tears from her eyes and into her
ears, where they pooled like puddles.
She thought her father would be proud.
She flew with Wendy B. Lawrence, a re-
tired Navy captain, who recalls Dr. Kavandi
as composed and without ego.
“Janet was one of those people who in-
stantly struck you as somebody who was
very accomplished, very competent, fit
right in,” she said, “hardly needed any ad-
justment period whatsoever.”
On Mir — jammed with boxes and instru-
ments strapped to the walls by bungee
cords, in corridors that smelled like a musty
basement — Dr. Kavandi disliked the clut-
ter, which often obstructed the view of
Earth from the station’s windows.
That inspired her to work with other as-
tronauts and the International Space Sta-
tion’s planners to seek installation of the cu-pola observation module where visitors
could better see and photograph the planet
below.
On her final shuttle trip, Dr. Kavandi con-
trolled a robotic arm to help install the sta-
tion’s Quest airlock. Michael Gernhardt,
who flew with Dr. Kavandi, said in an email
that she navigated the mission’s complex
choreography with precision and “quiet
competence.”Back on Earth
For the next dozen years, she served in a
variety of roles at NASA until 2013, when
she was appointed director of flight crew
operations at the Johnson Space Center in
Houston, led at the time by former astro-
naut Ellen Ochoa.
As chair of the 2013 astronaut class selec-
tion committee, Dr. Kavandi chose diverse
members who had expressed a willingness
to keep an open mind — people she felt con-
fident would not try to influence other mem-
bers’ choices based on their own favorite
candidates or personal biases.
“It was pretty groundbreaking,” she said.
Dr. Kavandi had implored panelists to
make fair and diverse choices. Although
she never expressly told them to pick as
many women as men, she explained, that’s
what they did, narrowing a pool of 6,300 ap-
plicants to four men and four women, the
first astronaut class balanced by gender.
In April, she was inducted into the United
States Astronaut Hall of Fame, only the 10th
woman to achieve that honor. (Only 57
NASA astronauts have been women.) And
she’s excited to continue working on space
in the private sector.
“I can still contribute to human space-
flight,” she said. “I can still continue to sup-
ply the space station, I can still make some
pretty impressive contributions to making
humanity better in that respect.”
While Dr. Kavandi’s time at NASA is over,
her mark on the agency is likely to endure.
Mr. Bridenstine has said the first woman
to walk on the moon will be an astronaut
currently in the corps — and one who has
already worked aboard the space station. At
least two strong candidates were chosen in
2013 by Dr. Kavandi’s selection committee:
Christina Koch and Anne McClain. (Ms. Mc-
Clain was recently the subject of complaints
related to her divorce.)
And Dr. Kavandi has a favorite, but she’s
not sharing.
“Had I still been in the corps, I would
have loved to be one of those candidates,
but my time is passed,” she said. “Whoever
it is will be a really lucky person — not for
the fame or anything, but just to know, wow,
we finally made it there.”Building the Path to a Woman on the Moon
Janet Kavandi, recently retired
from NASA, added fairness to
the agency’s selection process.
By JILLIAN KRAMERUnder Dr. Kavandi’s
guidance, the astronaut
committee chose four
men and four women.ALLISON FARRAND FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESJanet Kavandi, the director
of NASA’s Glenn Research
Center in Cleveland, retired
on Sept. 30, after 25 years
at the government agency.
During that time, she went
on three space shuttle
missions and led the 2013
astronaut class selection
committee.regions or playgrounds. And while the
growth of tourism may help local busi-
nesses, the forays into deeper parts of the
forests by more and more people are en-
croaching on wildlife.
Mechanized mountain bikes and e-bikes,
especially at higher speeds, are incompati-
ble with hiking, hunting, and bird and wild-
life watching, some argue. Safety is a con-
cern. Some mountain bikers revel at bomb-
ing down trails at 20 or 30 miles per hour on
single-track trails that hikers also frequent.
And biologists like Dr. Servheen who
have spent decades studying grizzlies offer
reminders about protecting the bears and
other wildlife that unwittingly share their
territory with more people and more mech-
anized vehicles.
In its report on Mr. Treat’s fatal accident,
the interagency committee concluded:
“The bear apparently had no time to move
to avoid the collision. At a speed of 20-25
miles per hour, there were only one-to-two
seconds between rounding the curve, the
victim seeing the bear in the trail and im-
pacting the bear.”
Dr. Stephen Herrero, a professor emeri-
tus of ecology at the University of Calgary,
spent much of his career studying grizzlies,
and is the author of “Bear Attacks: Their
Causes and Avoidance.”An avid mountain
bike rider, he shares Dr. Servheen’s con-
cerns.
“Bears respond to surprises usually by
fleeing, but sometimes by attacking what-
ever it is that is surprising them,” Dr. Her-
rero said. “Events like runners and bike rid-
ers and anything else that suddenly thrusts
a disturbance or surprise into their envi-
ronment, they sometimes respond by at-
tacking.
“I try to avoid mountain biking in any
area that is grizzly bear habitat,” he said.
“There are plenty of areas that aren’t.”
Bikers tend to play down the risks. Re-
becca Briber, executive director of the Flat-
head Area Mountain Bikers, said she al-
ways carried bear spray with her on rides.
“We’re always aware we are recreating in
bear country,” she said. “Mountain bike-
grizzly bear interactions are rare. It’s more
common for hikers to be attacked.”
Other concerns include whether the in-
crease in biking in natural areas could do
more to displace grizzlies and other wildlife
than hiking, because bikes cover so much
more ground, Dr. Servheen said.
“The impacts are mounting because
there are more and more mountain bikers
and there is more pressure to go into these
places with faster bikes and electric mecha-
nized bikes,” he said. “The technology has
exceeded our ability to manage it for the
benefit of animals.”
Or to understand it. Some experts are
raising questions about how fast-moving
bikes startle not just bears, but elk, deer and
other species, and disrupt their lives.
Dr. Servheen also believes that the sensa-
tional news of a grizzly bear killing a bike
rider works against the bear from a public
relations standpoint. “The response from
many people to these kinds of attacks is that
grizzly bears are dangerous and their hab-
itat is a dangerous place,” he said. “It’s a
cost the bears have to pay in terms of public
support and the willingness to have grizzly
bears around.”
Because the popularity of biking in these
areas has grown rapidly, there is little re-
search on its effects on wildlife. But there is
a growing body of evidence that outdoor
recreation of all kinds has serious conse-
quences for wildlife.
“Over all, we found a moderate to strong
effect of recreation on wildlife across the
board,” said Courtney Larson, who pub-
lished a literature review of 274 studies in
2016 for her Ph.D at Colorado State Univer-
sity and has just completed a meta-analysis
on the effects of recreation.
The singular influence that mountain bik-
ing might have on the surrounding envi-
ronment is not known, she said. “It’s a little
difficult to tease out on its own because
most of the time, mountain bike use occurs
on multiple use trails with hiking, mountain
biking, dogs and horseback riders on the
same trails,” Dr. Larson said.
But the effect of humans touring through
wildlife habitats should be taken seriously,
she said. “We can’t make an assumption
that recreation is a benign use of conserved
lands,” she added.
Wildlife needs to feel secure and animals
can be stressed by the presence of people.Startling elk, deer or any other animal
causes them to flee, to use up energy and
avoid areas where they are surprised but
that they might need for feeding.
Though no studies have been done about
the effect of mountain bikes specifically on
grizzlies, Dr. Servheen says other research
and many thousands of hours of field obser-
vations by biologists show how much bears
are aware of the presence of people.
A bear’s “distribution can be dramatically
affected by human use of the landscape,”
said Dr. Servheen, especially mountain
bikes because they cover so much territory.
“Bears may change their home range, they
may change their movement pattern, they
may avoid certain areas. They may become
nocturnal, or females with cubs might avoid
those areas.”
A study last year found that elk move in
response to people, more from bikes than
hikers. Recent studies have shown that
when a mountain bike appeared, elk fled
1,500 meters, almost as much as the 2,000
meters they ran to escape from an all-ter-
rain vehicle. Hikers, on the other hand,
caused cow elk to move only 750 meters.
Enough pressure from people may inter-
rupt an elk’s feeding habits and have long-
term implications for a herd. “If a female
doesn’t put on enough body fat, she mightnot be able to conceive the next year,” said
Michael Wisdom, a researcher with the Pa-
cific Northwest Research Station, part of
the Forest Service, and an author of the
study. “An increase in time running reduces
time foraging.”
In a 2013 study on forest land near Vail,
Colo., researchers blamed human tourists
and recreation for the smaller herd counts,
down to several dozen head of elk from
1,000 in years past. One study showed that if
a cow elk was disturbed 10 times duringcalving, no calves would survive.
To complicate matters, advanced tech-
nologies for mountain biking contribute to
deeper exploration of natural areas. Moun-
tain bikes with snow tires, for example, ex-
pand the season of riding to winter, when
wildlife are most vulnerable.
Solutions include better management of
trails used by mountain bikes, as well as re-
stricting use on some trails, lowering any
speed limits and permitting bike riders only
on dirt roads.
One solution “is careful planning of the
trail corridor and the design,” said David
Wiens, executive director of the Interna-
tional Mountain Bicycling Association in
Gunnison, Colo. “That’s where the agencies
get involved and the wildlife specialists,
who can come up with the proper location of
the trail based on their expertise. In certain
cases, there are seasonal closures for wild-
life.”
Some mountain biking groups, though,
continue to fight for access to excluded wil-
derness areas. A bill titled the Human-Pow-
ered Travel in Wilderness Areas Act, intro-
duced this year by Senator Mike Lee, Re-
publican of Utah, would allow local manag-
ers to decide if mountain bikes are
appropriate in designated wilderness.
“What should keep people from doing it,”
Dr. Servheen said, “is common sense and
the belief that grizzly bears have a reason to
be here and I have lots of other places to
recreate.”
“I am not against mountain biking,” he
said. “But we need to understand grizzlies
don’t have any other place to go. It’s their
living room.”Bears and Bikers Meet in Uncharted Territory
Dr. Christopher Servheen,
above, cautions against
allowing deeper
exploration of wilderness
trails where grizzly bears
live. Left, Brad Treat, a law
enforcement officer with
the United States Forest
Service, was killed by a
bear after colliding with it
while mountain biking.‘Agencies are permitting
the very activities we are
telling people not to do.’
DR. CHRISTOPHER SERVHEEN
FORMERLY OF THE FISH AND
WILDLIFE SERVICELIDO VIZZUTTI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESU.S. FOREST SERVICE VIA ASSOCIATED PRESSCONTINUED FROM PAGE D1