Reminiscing back a pace to the first day she met Ralston on her way to her classes with a wave and a smile, and then shortly after her first day of school when her last class had ended, she was walking alone on her way home. She had caught Ralston’s charm out of the corner of her eye, had smiled, and then he looked toward her. He waived to her enthusiastically from a distance. He then noticed how she was struggling with the books in her hands, and without hesitation, he rushed over, all too late to help her carry them. Although she stumbled, and they slipped from her grasp, he helped her pick them up, while at the same time offering her a ride home. From that point on, Ralston J. Rayna picked her up every day and became her life-long chauffeur. “I never had to drive a car a day in my life,” Vesha reminisced with a smile.
She remembered when they fell in love, describing her memories quietly in her mind, as if in an interview with some unseen persona, “It must have been at some point during the many intriguing, intellectual, and even blissful moments we shared. He had a depth of character I rarely saw in any other man. He had an innocent charm, a love for knowledge and humanity, and he respected me through my spit, vim, and vinegar. I was in bliss, yes, but I was a stubborn one. I had my goals, and he agreed to respect them—and, respect them he did,” she recalled.
Both Vesha and Ralston attended courses under the guidance of the already renowned theoretical physicist, Dr. Philip Morrison. “Together with Ralston, there were so many shared memories of conversations over cups of tea, afternoons filled with birds singing and nesting, blossoms blowing in the breeze during springtime, and leaves turning bristled colors of yellow, orange, and red through autumn. Catching our papers during short gusts of wind, we’d chat for hours, and still get our homework done. Oh, Ralston’s clarity and charm in explanation of Dr. Morrison’s delivery of physics! I found his comprehension of each thing we discussed quite stimulating. This amplified my understanding of chemistry and the Universe much more.”
While going through their master’s programs, Vesha and Ralston worked with each other for hours on end, doing research, bouncing ideas off of each other, and found they were growing quite a bit closer to each other. They’d take a break from everything at times and walk twenty minutes to Cayuga Lake, sit in the gazebo to read and step to the shoreline to look up into the nighttime sky to see if they could spot the various constellations of the season. They would, on occasion, walk another twenty minutes to watch a play put on by the university’s local comedy troupe or drama club. “Ralston was very level-headed, brilliant, enjoyed culture, and he was a gentleman with a keen sense for the arts, the sciences, and pleasantries. I felt at peace with him.”
Both Ralston and Vesha had an affinity for good causes and preferred reduction in suffering and divisiveness throughout the world. They had a lot of confidence in the fact that the more they understood, the more the plight of humanity could be addressed. “If only people could engage their focus, their energies, and their efforts toward the beauty of the world we live in, if only they could focus toward the skies, the Universe, and the heavens, maybe misery and violence could be reduced.” Vesha thought genuinely about this time of her young, love-filled, studious, and marvelous life.
She recalled how both she and Ralston had agreed, “If people could be more constructive, productive, and helpful, humanity would become so much more evolved.” She knew that if they did, “Many people, perhaps down the road and into the future, would grow to progress toward a better reality, where we could preserve life rather than watch as it was stripped away.”
Vesha knew she was surrounded by amazing people when she realized how burdened her professors had been by what had happened surrounding World War II.
Through Dr. Morrison’s mentorship, Vesha had begun to understand gamma-ray physics, quantum theory, and the more precise details of how large clusters of galaxies worked.
Following her first year at Cornell, Ralston asked her father, Lukas, for her hand in marriage. Ralston had told her father that they had agreed she would keep her last name, so she could carry on her parents’ legacy, and even help to bring in a more modern era—one of respect and dignity. He had considered the resilience she demonstrated by doing all she needed to, to become a scientist. Her father saw and appreciated the humanity within Ralston, was honored to consider him a son and approved. Vesha Celeste and Ralston Rayna were married in 1948.
Throughout their lives, Ralston confided in her father how much he respected her plans for a career and let him know he would do all within his power to ensure their relationship and her career were respected.
“Family life and career goals will both be seamless, as well as complement each other,” Vesha had overheard Ralston telling Lukas on several occasions. Their wedding was simple, yet it was also a graceful and memorable celebration. Both of their parents attended, and throughout the ceremony, Vesha observed both of Ralston’s parents, and her mother and father glowing with excitement. No matter her nerves, Ralston was a source of stability, joy, and peace.
As they pursued their studies further, both Ralston Rayna and Vesha Celeste found that they often shared professors. “Dr. Richard Feynman took bits and pieces of ideas and notions of matter and energy in the 1940's and shaped them into the tools that ordinary physicists could understand and calculate with. He was such an honor to work with, and his mannerisms made him quite a comic in his own right, making learning fun and fulfilling,” Vesha recalled.
Vesha then contemplated one of her other professors, “Dr. Hans Bethe’s dedication to his work and his understanding of nucleosynthesis was extraordinary.” She continued to ponder, “Studying with both Feynman and Bethe and sharing ideas with Ralston was such a benefit to my clarity of understanding. Several of our professors became Nobel Prize winners in the ‘60’s!”
Vesha recalled how in 1950, she and Ralston welcomed a handsome baby boy into the world and named him Daniel. She remembered how he, at such a young age seemed thrilled with the funny things her husband would bring home. “Ralston would bring home science books, mathematic models, and even an abacus for Daniel when he was a young child; he seemed so intrigued by how they worked. My mom and dad were involved too. They were present and helped me out regularly and faithfully. This way, Daniel had proper parenting, while I was working on my studies, my thesis, and family was a nice break from it all. Although I had to immerse myself in my studies, I still found time for him. Daniel had a loving environment.”
Vesha finished her graduate thesis in 1951, the same year that Ralston received his Ph.D. in chemistry. Following his graduation, Dr. Ralston J. Rayna was awarded a senior staff position at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Washington, DC.
Vesha pondered through her history, “Ralston followed through on his promise to me, he arranged his work in DC, so I could further my education at Georgetown University for my doctoral studies. He always did the little things; he brought flowers home with a note I could see—and every bouquet smelled so lovely! On so many occasions, he did things in a nuanced and quiet manner to help me out, or to make the pains of the day seem to drift away. His choices in career management enabled me to travel abroad all over the Americas, from Texas to Chile, and on to California and back, so I could gather the information necessary to write up the analysis for my thesis.
“During my travels and studies at that time, I was able to examine the possibility of a bulk rotation in the Universe by researching the apparent expansion and how it affected or didn’t affect all of the galaxies. As similar as these rotations seemed, abiding by laws of physics, each region of space is actually unique to a fault, which adds to the complexed beauty of it all.”
While in school Vesha delivered speeches, gave seminars to professors, and pored over countless books and journals and became immersed in her studies. “Meanwhile, Ralston juggled his private life sweetly and lovingly with me and his professional life with brilliance, ease, responsibility, and was a father of patience and charm.
“He
became quite accomplished in his own right, and even took time for sports, engaged in community affairs and service projects, and wrote books. No matter how much was going on, he never let it slow any of us down. We also never lost our romantic spark.” She loved him.
Full-bore and throughout her doctoral studies, Vesha had been paired up with many amazing professors. “It was Ralston who had introduced me to Dr. George Gamow, who became my doctoral advisor.” She appreciated the fact that even though he was a professor working long hours at George Washington University, “He had chosen to take time out of his schedule to spend many mind-expanding moments with me throughout my studies, providing advice and insight on nucleocosmogenesis, as I was going to Georgetown. At that time Georgetown was the only school that had a doctoral program in astronomy.” Previously, in his career, Dr. Gamow had solved the theory of alpha decay of a nucleus via tunneling and had subsequently defected from the USSR, leading to the point in which he advised her on cosmology and quantum physics.
Vesha recalled examining the possibility of a bulk rotation in the Universe, “In 1951, by searching for non-Hubble flow I made one of the first observations of deviations from the Hubble flow in the motions of galaxies, identifying a faster speed and a clear argument for dark matter.”
She recalled how, while completing her thesis she had argued with him, “Galaxies might be rotating around unknown centers, rather than simply moving outwards, as suggested by the Big Bang Theory.” He agreed with her shortly thereafter. However, the established scientific community saw things differently. “Oh, the presentation of these ideas was not well received, and my journalistic entries were rejected by both the astronomical and the astrophysical journals, but I knew better. I needed to provide further proof, and old habits die hard. Whenever skeptics seem to prevail, it is ours to search deeper and enlighten with concrete evidence.”
Through it all, Vesha’s parents had taught her humility so at this point in her life she realized that her data did not provide the clarity that she would have liked it to have. She knew despite all, there was something of value in her findings and argued that her thesis was significant in relation to Gérard de Vaucouleurs's claim of evidence for a “Local Supercluster.”
On the home front, she gave birth to her daughter, Jillian, in 1952. As before, Vesha’s parents, Lukas and Irena Celeste, eagerly helped Vesha and Ralston with their children.
Vesha recalled overhearing her parents one day talking to a reporter in an interview many years later, and Vesha had felt very much the same way about their daughter, “We love dear sweet Jillian very much; she had been such a lovely girl, and she grew up to be interested in astronomy, just like her mother. She worked hard and earned a Ph.D. in Cosmic-Ray Physics.”
Vesha appreciated the friend she made at the science conventions during her youth, and the earlier years of high school, as she recollected other moments shared later, “Najem came to DC that year, in 1952, with a presentation during a science exposition that I attended. She had been working in Chicago on a study of AG Draconis and had, by a stroke of luck, discovered that its emission spectrum had completely changed since earlier observations. This was a big deal since this was one of the first observations of such a rare event documented in modern history. I also enjoyed spending time with her afterward as we talked about Andromeda and many other aspects relating to science and our personal lives for several hours.”
“It was nice rekindling our friendship after so many years of study, dedication, and she had come so far,” thought Vesha.
A couple of years after her daughter Jillian’s birth, Vesha completed her studies and was awarded her doctorate. Vesha reflected, “My dissertation under Gamow, completed in 1954, made it clear that galaxies were clumped together rather than being distributed randomly throughout the Universe. This idea was not pursued by others for a couple of decades. However, I charged ahead of the pack as I dutifully completed my studies above expectations making observations well in advance of my peers. The award of Ph.D. in Astronomy was an honor.”
After receiving her doctorate, Vesha began working as a professor of mathematics and physics at the Montgomery County Community College and stayed there for a year. “I enjoyed teaching the younger generation, and as always, there were among them some of the most brilliant people I could have ever imagined meeting. After working there for a year, I started doing what I had dreamed of doing for the longest time, which was working as a research astronomer in 1955, at Georgetown University,” she recalled.
“In 1956 our adorable baby boy, Chris, was born,” Vesha reminisced with fondness. “He later grew up to earn his doctorate in mathematics. He was a smart young man who took after his father. I could never be more proud of his dedication, his intellect, and his attentiveness to his own family when he grew up. He seemed to understand how mathematics was essential to engineering and the application of our knowledge to mechanisms that raised the quality of life.
“My youngest, Avery, was born in 1960 and was quite a wonderful young man as well, who loved being in the outdoors, going on hiking trips, on camping trips, and spending time near mountains, hills, lakes, rivers, and streams, even as a child. That may have been where he garnered an interest in geology. He had a theory that naturally occurring ripples in the terrain shared a calculated depth of layers related to our Earth’s core layers. Manmade mountains only had dirt mixed with rock and whatever else.
“Brilliant,” she chuckled quietly to herself.
She recalled carrying Avery on her hip while delivering speeches to the board, “I gave dissertations to professors and university leaders with Avery on my hip, so someone else wouldn’t provide the presentation and take sole credit for the work I had spent hours on. I juggled family life, my personal interests, and my career at the same time. They were each important to me.”
In 1962, Vesha ran into her childhood friend, Najem, again. They took advantage of their free time and talked over a hike through town to catch up on the last ten years or so of their lives.
“It was exciting because, at this time in Najem’s career, she had just accepted an administrative position at NASA. This was a first in a couple of ways—for women and for her new program, and I was very impressed. She was planning the beginning stages of travel to the Moon, placing satellites in space to observe the Earth and the Universe, and two satellites to travel to the distant regions of our solar system. This was exciting stuff! We had to celebrate a little bit together.” Arm in arm is how she recalled spending the evening going over life, their ideas on astrophysics, and their past, and they continued later, over a couple of simple martinis.
As Vesha Celeste continued to traipse through her moments in life, she never forgot that she was always close to and appreciated her parent’s religious heritage, reminiscing and remembering graciously, “There was never a conflict for me between science and religion.”
She mused over something she was quoted as saying during an interview when a particularly vindictive reporter asked her about this apparent conflict, "In my own life, my science and my religion are always separate. My religion suggests that I am Jewish, but religion to me is like a moral code and a sort of history. I try to do my science morally, and I believe that ideally science should be looked upon as something that helps us to understand our role in the Universe.”
Vesha reflected on her first meeting with Jasmine Belle, eleven years later. Jasmine happened to be thirty at that time, on a worker’s visa from the United Kingdom in the DC area, in 1973. She was working in one of Najem’s NASA teams in preparation of several of the satellites that would be placed into outer space. “It was an exciting time; it was a new space age, and she was brilliant!”
Humanity’s mission to the Moon, the ‘space race’ was on, work on the Mariner program was in full-bore, and work on the Hubble Space Telescope was filled with its challenges and ups and downs. At that same time, Vesha had been introduced to Jasmine by Najem. Again, they walked through town, but this time with Ja
smine alongside them. They caught up on sciences and talked with each other more over root beer floats at the local A&W. They added Jasmine to their little circle, as they went over dark matter, astrophysics, and the future of space exploration.
Vesha then drifted, thinking about how she spent her time in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. These decades came with some successes as well as the loss of heroes who gave their lives to science and were all-in during some of the tragedies of early pioneering space missions.
“Oh, the people I have met; the young women, Eliza and Yesha, James, Amber and Erin, they were each an inspiration to me, and Eliza and Yesha showed up to one of my conferences instead of going to their prom, in 1994. Our subsequent discussions and meetings from time to time over the last almost two decades were always so vibrant, full of life, meaningful, and intellectual. Hah, those two sweet young ladies, they certainly have great potential. They burn from within to do great things. I am pleased with Eliza, proud of her for finally running for office, with a successful bid at that, to represent her state in the United States Congress.”
Vesha reflected on the meetings with the Pathway science teams. She also recalled when she spent time with Grace and Jasmine in the new Pathway facilities. Her encounters with young Amber, James, and little Erin were all so sweet and endearing. She thought of all that had passed through her gaze in life despite her advancing years and the contributions she had made, the many brilliant people who had brought her in—if for anything out of admiration of her efforts in science and her love for humanity. She admired both Eliza and Yesha, as they grew to be very competent scientists, adults, and leaders, multiplying their ingenuity and compounding upon it at every turn. She applauded them for their self-motivation to improve things in the world and to make the core of well-being and quality of life the driving force for what they did. She also reflected on how she had spent a long life serving her world and humanity in her own way, in the search for wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of space and all of its exhilarating intrigues.
Further than Before- Pathway to the Stars Page 3