Despite NASA’s dismal record in trying to get the shuttle Columbia off the ground in recent months, the role of women in the American space program continues to progress at a steady pace.

But Ann P. Bradley, NASA’s assistant associate administrator for Human Resources, told a group of business and professional women in Bangor on Tuesday that “women are still underrepresented in NASA.”

As a NASA executive for the last 17 years, Bradley said she has been able to track a significant growth in the number of women involved in all fields of space exploration.

When she joined the space agency, for example, only two of its 500 senior managers were women. Today, she said, 26 hold high-ranking positions within the space agency.

“And there were absolutely no women training to be astronauts when I started with NASA,” said Bradley, who headed the committee that selected Christa McAuliffe to be the first civilian in space. The New Hampshire schoolteacher died in the explosion of the shuttle Challenger in January 1986.

By 1978, Bradley said, seven women had been accepted into the astronaut-training program. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space five years later, and Kathryn Sullivan followed that achievement by becoming the first American woman to walk in space.

Today, 18 of the nation’s 109 astronauts are women, she said, and one of them is training to be a shuttle pilot.

Although NASA now receives an equal number of male and female applicants, Bradley said, only 29 percent of NASA’s 22,000 civilian personnel are women. Less than 14 percent of those work as scientists and engineers, and 5 percent are in positions of authority.

“When I began, there were very few women scientists and engineers in the pool to select from,” she said. “So NASA had a valid excuse for the lower numbers.”

From 1976-1986, however, the number of women earning their bachelor’s degrees in engineering rose 29 percent nationwide, compared to 2 percent for men. As the number of qualified female candidates rose, so did the number of women participating for the first time in the shuttle program.

“The progress has been significant, but not quite enough,” she told the gathering, which included several female students from Searsport High School who are considering careers in NASA.

Bradley urged parents, teachers, and guidance counselors to become better role models for the next generation of women who will enter the space program.

“Only 40 percent of female engineering students cited their high school guidance counselors as being supportive in their decisions,” said Bradley, who received NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal in 1982.

“She made me realize just how important my job is,” said Sherry Stanko, guidance counselor for the Searsport junior and senior high schools. “I believe we fail to teach math correctly, and really turn girls off to it.”

Laurie Glidden, a high school sophomore, said that learning of the relatively small number of women at NASA had made her more determined to pursue a career in the space program.

“I’ve always loved jets and I aspire to become a pilot,” Glidden said. “I also wonder about the heavens, and what’s up there. I’ve wanted to be an astronaut since I was in the fourth grade. This is my goal, and I have no fear that I won’t make it.”