Megan McArthur, first woman to pilot SpaceX Dragon, retires from NASA after more than two decades

The first woman to pilot a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and the last to “touch” the Hubble space telescope retired after more than two decades with NASA

Megan McArthur was trained as aeronautical engineer and oceanographer at UCLA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego

Some explorers have focused on alpine heights. Others on polar extremes.

Megan McArthur is one of the elite few who can say she’s piloted both submarines and spacecraft, exploring expanses from the ocean floor to low Earth orbit, looking down on the planet from 250 miles above.

Now McArthur, 54, is retiring from NASA, where she has served for more than two decades as an astronaut and senior leader at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Houston.

Emily Carney, a space historian, described McArthur as