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Jeannette Ridlon Piccard (January 5, 1895 – May 17, 1981) was an American high-altitude balloonist, and in later life an Episcopal priest. She held the women's altitude record for nearly three decades, and according to several contemporaneous accounts was regarded as the first woman in space.〔Shayler & Moule, pp. 12, 25–26〕 Piccard was the first licensed female balloon pilot in the U.S., and the first woman to fly to the stratosphere. Accompanied by her husband, Jean—a member of the Piccard family of balloonists and the twin brother of Auguste Piccard—she reached a height of during a record-breaking flight over Lake Erie on October 23, 1934, retaining control of the balloon for the entire flight. After her husband's death in 1963, she worked as a consultant to the director of NASA's Johnson Space Center for several years, talking to the public about NASA's work, and was posthumously inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1998. From the late 1960s onwards, Piccard returned to her childhood interest in religion. She was ordained a deacon of the Episcopal Church in 1971, and on July 29, 1974, became one of the Philadelphia Eleven, the first women to be ordained priests—though the ordinations were regarded as irregular, performed by bishops who had retired or resigned.〔(The path to priesthood . . . "The Philadelphia Eleven" ), Diocese of Easton, accessed February 25, 2010.〕 Piccard was the first of the women to be ordained that day, because at 79 she was the oldest, and because she was fulfilling an ambition she had had since she was 11 years old. When asked by Bishop John Allin, the head of the church, not to proceed with the ceremony, she is said to have told him, "Sonny, I'm old enough to have changed your nappies."〔 In September 1976, the church voted to allow women into the priesthood, and Piccard served as a priest in Saint Paul, Minnesota, until she died at the age of 86.〔''The Episcopal Handbook'', Church Publishing Inc., 2008, p. 111.〕 One of her granddaughters, the Rev. Kathryn Piccard, also an Episcopal priest, said of her: "She wanted to expand the idea of what a respectable lady could do. She had the image of the street-wise old lady."〔 == Family and education == Born in Chicago, Illinois, Piccard was one of nine children born to Emily Ridlon and John Ridlon, who was president of the American Orthopaedic Association. She had a lifelong interest in science and religion. When she was 11, her mother asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. Piccard's reply—"a priest"—sent her mother running out of the room in tears. Piccard studied philosophy and psychology at Bryn Mawr College, where in 1916 she wrote an essay titled "Should Women Be Admitted to the Priesthood of the Anglican Church?" She received her bachelor's degree in 1918, and went on to study organic chemistry at the University of Chicago, receiving her master's degree in 1919. That same year she met and married Jean Felix Piccard, who was teaching at the university. Piccard was the mother of a house full of boys. Robert R. Gilruth, one of her students and collaborators, said later in his oral history that he remembered a breakfast he had with the Piccards in a St. Cloud, Minnesota hotel before a balloon launching, "I don't know how many there were. It seems like there was a dozen.... I remember the youngest one took the corn flake box and dumped it on his father's head. Of course, Piccard just brushed it off his head and said, 'No, no.'"〔 "He was very gentle. He loved his boys, and he thought boys would be boys, I guess." The Piccards had three sons of their own, John, Paul, and Donald (who would become a famous balloonist and ballooning innovator in his own right), as well as foster children. The Piccard family archive in the Library of Congress mentions correspondence from foster children whom the Piccards took in, although nothing else seems to be known about them.〔 The Piccards taught at the University of Lausanne from 1919–26. In 1926 they returned to the United States, where Jean Piccard taught organic chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.nmspacemuseum.org/halloffame/detail.php?id=142 )〕 The couple lived in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania before settling in Minneapolis in 1936 when Jean Piccard joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota. She received a doctorate in education from the University of Minnesota in 1942, and a certificate of study from the General Theological Seminary in 1973. Gilruth made a point of describing Piccard in his oral history. He said, "She was very bright, had her own doctor's degree, and was at least half of the brains of that family, technical as well as otherwise. …She was always in the room when he was lecturing or otherwise, almost always. She was something. She was good."〔 David DeVorkin, curator of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, wrote a history of manned scientific ballooning.〔DeVorkin, copyright page〕 In DeVorkin's view, the Piccards "entrepreneurship and subsequent success" in ballooning was due to "their enormous persistence…and considerable confidence, pluck, and luck".〔DeVorkin, pp. 108–109〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jeannette Piccard」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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