The following excerpt is taken from http://mistersf.com/sanfran/sanfranspace.htm

The Space Lady is San Francisco's most enchanting street musician. Whether on keyboard or accordion, her music stops sidewalk traffic even in this multi-task town. Contrary to this dramatic photo taken on Market Street near Castro, she usually performs wearing a steel helmet with angel wings, making her easy to recognize but belying the credibility of her haunting vocal interpretations of well known songs. Mister SF always requests Time After Time or Spanish Harlem. A San Francisco favorite is Over the Rainbow. The Space Lady, whose real name is Susan Dietrich, made only one recording for sale. It featured Susan performing live on Casio with effects. With encouragement from her many fans in San Francisco, I am sure she can be convinced to make a new studio recording of the music San Franciscans know and love so well. When she does, Mister SF will be the first to tell you.

Cause and Effect - An Autobiographical

Finding a dilapidated, old accordion in a junk store was the major cause in turning Susan Dietrich's life around. At the time, back in the early seventies when Richard Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate fiasco, and the Vietnam war was still raging in Southeast Asia, she and her husband Joel and their tiny daughter were political exiles living like refugees in their own country, terrified that Joel would be imprisoned for having resisted the draft. For nine years they had subsisted on spare change and meager sales of their artwork on the streets of Boston. The discovery and purchase of that little squeeze-box inspired Susan to take it into "battle", the war on their own personal poverty. Down into the dark, noisy subway stations of subterranean Boston she went, where she slowly learned to pick out simple, familiar tunes like "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," and "When Irish Eyes Are Shining". There must've been something rather quaintly charming about this thin little street waif literally singing for her supper, for in the very first hour she made twenty dollars in change plus a twenty dollar bill from an elderly couple wishing her well. She soon discovered that by playing from early morning rush hour through the entire day, she could pull in over eighty dollars, an impressive amount for the times and on the street, while Joel stayed home caring for the baby. The accordion was eventually retired in favor of the very first Casio keyboard released on the American market, a toy by today's standards. But with Joel's previous experience playing in various rock bands, they plugged the Casio into a phase-shifter, mic-ed Susan's voice through an echo unit, wired her tip box with twinkling lights, and crowned her with a winged helmet complete with a blinking red ball on top. She worked out arrangements for songs with other worldly themes, such as "Fly Me to the Moon", "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", "Ghost Riders in the Sky", "Radar Love" and "Major Tom". The response from the public was overwhelming. Suddenly, she was being referred to as "The Space Lady", and pictures of her began appearing in the papers and on TV. The cash flow became phenomenal; a cassette of space music soon followed (as did another baby), and the small family was finally able to return to San Francisco where Joel and Susan had met. Her music was received even more enthusiastically there, and she was flocked by people asking for interviews or requesting to make videos. To this day, 20 years later, she still receives letters and emails from her fans from coast to coast and around the world. But the most valuable and treasured aspects of her career were those of personal growth: acquiring "street smarts", becoming humble and compassionate, appreciating people from all walks of life, and discovering her talents and inner strengths, such as her lovely voice, her creativity, her originality, courage, tenacity, and her ability to find humor in the most difficult of situations. To think she owes it all to that little "Stomach Steinway" found in a junk store back in Beantown, Massachusetts!