Women. Driving. Some of you may feel that these two do not belong in the same sentence, but NASA begs to differ. Can you say: "Women drivers on Mars?"

Ok, NASA explicitly stated not to make jokes about women drivers in their article, but it's all in good fun, especially since the women involved in the mission can't help but poke fun at themselves as well.

Barbara Cohen, part of the Marshall Space Flight Center, is the head of the mission. She, and more than two dozen other female scientists and engineers, started out a conference call to lay out their mission with this light hearted exchange:

"Hey, any ladies in the house?"
"Any guy attending today is required to wear a tutu."
"Does this webcam make me look fat?"

We've all been working in our roles for some time, and all the team members, both male and female, are very good at what they do. So we all just did our jobs. It's a big friendly group, so even the banter online was par for the course.

Women in science are still very much underrepresented. It's a testament to the way the Mars Exploration Rover mission is run that we have brought so women on board and we all feel comfortable.

However, I think now it would be nearly impossible to have a spacecraft team with no women on it. The work that women have done on spacecraft, both now and before us, shows that we bring absolutely as much talent, knowledge, and teamwork to the table as men do.