Astronaut Honors Carrie Fisher's Legacy for Women in Space

This week the world lost an icon of powerful women, Carrie Fisher, and astronaut Thomas Pesquet on the International Space Station took to Twitter to honor her memory from space. 

Carrie Fisher brought to life one of the best-known space princess in the "Star Wars" franchise  including the up-and-coming "Star Wars VIII" in 2017. To show the impact of Fisher's legacy as Princess Leia, Pesquet posted a photo of Fisher alongside NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who is also on the space station and was the first female commander of the station, as well as NASA's first female chief astronaut. 

In her life off-screen she was not only an actress but a daughter, writer, script doctor, producer and humorist. Her honesty about her own struggles with mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse helped earn Fisher the Harvard College's Annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism.

Fisher even wrote her own obituary in her book "Wishful Drinking," she "drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra." Fisher portrayed a strong-willed, stubborn women filled with character and a great leader. She inspired girls and women over the last four decades breaking stereotypes and barriers.

Women are now filling roles in all levels of leadership, even becoming astronauts and joining history in the cosmos with Carrie Fisher.

NASA's own Peggy Whitson, part of the Expedition 50 crew  on the International Space Station until April 20, 2017, has been to the ISS three times. She has spent more than 377 days in space and nearly 40 hours out on spacewalks. With her most recent trip, she became the oldest woman in space as well as the first woman to command the space station twice.

Whitson also inspires girls and women to become all they can be and to lead with character.

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