Have you seen the photograph? A silhouette pressed against a spacecraft window, the entire planet Earth floating in the black behind her. Clouds swirling over oceans. Continents curved at the edge. The whole world — small enough to fit inside a porthole.
That’s Christina Koch. NASA astronaut. Engineer. Record-breaker. And as of April 6, 2026, the first woman in human history to travel around the Moon. She is 47 years old. She is home now.
“It is so great to hear from Earth again.” — Christina Koch, emerging from 40 minutes of radio silence behind the Moon, April 6, 2026
When Koch’s voice crackled back across 230,000 miles of space after the Orion spacecraft swung around the far side of the moon, those were her words. Steady. Warm. Unbothered. Herself.
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The record no one talks about
The Moon mission is only the most recent chapter.
Before this, she spent 328 consecutive days aboard the International Space Station — the longest single spaceflight by a woman in history.
Before that, she conducted the first all-female spacewalk alongside Jessica Meir in October 2019 — after the original was canceled because NASA didn’t have spacesuits in her size. She waited six months and went anyway.
Before that, she wintered over at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, with temperatures as low as −111°F, serving on firefighting and glacier search-and-rescue teams. In the dark. For months.
She was not discovered. She was built — by years of unglamorous, freezing, invisible, essential work.
For women in real estate — yes, I’m talking to you
How many times have you been told the timing isn’t right? That you’re too new, too entrenched, came to real estate too late? That you missed the boom or don’t have the network?
Koch was rejected from NASA’s astronaut program before she was accepted. She went to the South Pole. Then the Arctic. Then the ISS. Then the Moon.
There is no such thing as “too late to launch.” There is only the next step.
Women now make up 62 percent of the National Association of Realtors’ membership — a remarkable shift for an organization founded in 1908 by men, for men. According to a 2024 survey of more than 600 female agents by AceableAgent, 89 percent report feeling fulfilled in their careers, 87 percent are on track to meet their financial goals, and 84 percent say real estate has allowed them to achieve financial goals they didn’t think were possible in previous careers.
Fifty-one percent said real estate was not their first career. Seventy-four percent joined after having kids.
The majority of women in this industry didn’t start here. They arrived, like Koch, after doing something else first. After surviving something else first. And they built something anyway.
The toilet story (trust me, this is about leadership)
On Day 3 of the mission, Koch radioed Mission Control about a burning smell from the space toilet. She was in lunar orbit. She had just made history. She was also troubleshooting the bathroom.
This is what mastery actually looks like — not the highlight reel, but the ability to be fully historic and completely professional at the same time. To hold the magnitude of a moment and still handle the mundane with grace and zero drama.
In real estate, you can close the deal of your career and still have to handle the inspection report from hell that same afternoon. Koch filed her report. Mission Control investigated. The mission continued.
Now, it’s your turn
Koch didn’t wait for someone to hand her the mission. She built herself into the person the mission required — one freezing, unglamorous step at a time.
You have a window, too. Here’s how to use it.
- Send the prospecting email you’ve been drafting for three weeks. The market isn’t waiting. Neither should you.
- Call the expired listing. The seller is frustrated, not unreachable. Be the agent who shows up with solutions when others don’t.
- Raise your professional fee. If you haven’t revisited what you charge in two years, you’re leaving money on the table and your value at every closing.
- Go after the listing that feels too big. The luxury property. The commercial deal. The seller with the complicated situation. Koch applied to NASA before she was ready, got rejected, went to the South Pole and got better. What’s your South Pole?
- Join the room. The mastermind. The board. The committee. The coaching community. The brokerage leadership meeting. Walk in.
- Tell your story. Koch didn’t hide her 328 days in space, her Antarctic winters, her failed first application. She let the full picture of who she is speak louder than any credential. So should you.
Eighty-four percent of women in real estate have achieved financial goals they didn’t think were possible in their previous careers. That’s not a statistic — that’s a room full of women who showed up anyway and won.
The Earth looked small from the moon. Your fear looks a lot smaller than it did last week, too.
Splashdown was Friday. What are you launching?
Additional resources: Artemis II lunar flyby photo gallery — free and public domain, cleared for use Women in STEM — National Women’s History Museum
Julie Escobar is president at Darryl Davis Seminars. Connect with her on Instagram and LinkedIn.
