In a speech yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed she wanted to be an astronaut as a girl, but NASA told her she couldn't because she was a woman.

"When I was about 13, I wrote to NASA and asked what I needed to do to try to be an astronaut," she explained. "And of course, there weren’t any women astronauts, and NASA wrote me back and said there would not be any women astronauts. And I was just crestfallen." Clinton added that she "wasn't athletic" and "couldn't see very well," so it was likely she would have never become an astronaut.

Clinton shared her story during an event held yesterday in Washington D.C. to praise the legacy of female aviator Amelia Earhart and highlight our ties with the Pacific Island nations.

Clinton said that as a hero of the era of the Great Depression, Earhart was a perfect role model for modern Americans. "Like that earlier generation, we too could use some of Amelia’s spirit, that sense that anything is possible if we just roll up our sleeves and get to work together," she said.

"NASA may have said I couldn’t go into space, but nobody was there to tell Amelia Earhart she couldn’t do what she chose to do," Clinton said.