Shannon Curry is in charge of a spacecraft orbiting Mars (she’s a planetary scientist)

The first time she looked through a telescope, Shannon lost her breath. A self-proclaimed "science camp kid," she learned early that she wanted to do research, and that space would be her subject.Shannon Curry, Ph.D. is now the director of NASA's MAVEN mission, a spacecraft that has been orbiting Mars since 2014. She and her team at the University of Colorado, Boulder are trying to determine how Mars lost its atmosphere, in order to reveal why all the ancient lakes and rivers on Mars disappeared. Their new research provides the first direct observation of a phenomenon known as "sputtering."Besides studying Mars' atmosphere, though, MAVEN is also the only way the current Mars rovers can relay data back to Earth using an American spacecraft, and MAVEN is also the only way we can measure dangerous solar storms that could harm our astronauts and planet.But the funding for MAVEN is scheduled to be eliminated in the 2026 budget; if that happens, it will be the death of a spacecraft, and the life work of many scientists, including Shannon.