To My Friend Kathleen

Keith’s note: I wanted to take a moment of your time to talk about my friend Kathleen Connell. She is under hospice care right now. Her wife Jaye is with her and read this note to her. “I have known both Kathleen and Jaye for 30 years. I met them both when Kathleen was working at NASA Ames. In a nutshell Kathleen was part of a small cadre – of which I was a member – that helped to bring NASA’s Astrobiology program into existence. The list is too long – but Lynn Harper, Greg Schmidt, Mel Avener, Mitch Hobish, Rho Christensen, Joe Minafra, Scott Hubbard, David Morrison and so, so many others worked in the forefront and the background – one way or another – to help make Astrobiology a real thing. The most notable early accomplishment was to get Nobel Laureate Baruch Blumberg to come to a meeting at Ames and then twist his arm him to consider applying to be come the Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. Little arm twisting was needed since Barry was a quick convert. Kathleen was in on every aspect of this – big and small – public and behind the scenes – often without a lot of public fanfare or acknowledgement. Without Kathleen, the road to birthing Astrobiology at NASA would have been that much harder. And look at it now. Astrobiology went from a throw-away word on a memo to a global phenomena. As Jaye reads this to you, Kathleen, just know that you did good and it will not be forgotten. Ad Astra – and thank you. – Keith”