On Sept. 12, 1992, NASA astronaut Mae Jemison turned the primary African American girl to go to area.
In NASA’s early days, ladies and folks of shade have been by no means chosen to go to area. NASA did not ship a girl to area till the seventh area shuttle mission in 1983. NASA launched the primary Black man in area, astronaut Guion Bluford, on the next mission that very same yr.
However it could take one other 9 years for NASA to lastly choose a Black girl to fly on STS-47, the fiftieth area shuttle mission. Jemison was a skilled engineer and licensed doctor who served within the Peace Corps earlier than making use of to turn out to be an astronaut.
She labored as a mission specialist on STS-47 and logged over 190 hours in area. STS-47 was her solely mission. In 1993, she retired from NASA and went on to discovered her personal firm, the Jemison Group, which is a expertise consulting agency.
Why it mattered
Mae Jemison’s historic launch on STS-47 was a milestone for Black astronauts and NASA’s growth into a more diverse space agency.
Jemison, who was born in Alabama and grew up in Chicago, joined NASA’s astronaut corps in 1987 as an astronaut candidate after years working as a the Area Peace Corp Medical Officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa (from 1983 to 1985). Before that, she earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University (where she also studied African American Studies), and later a doctorate in medicine from Cornell University. She was serving as a General Practitioner in medicine when she applied to be a NASA astronaut.
Jemison has said she was fascinated by space from a young age and found inspiration the Star Trek’s Lt. Uhura, a Black woman in space on television, before going on to university. (We’ll return to Star Trek in a minute).
As the science mission specialist on STS-47, Jemison oversaw 44 different experiments for Japan and the United States inside the Spacelab module aboard space shuttle Endeavour. She was also the co-investigator on a bone cell study that flew on the same mission.
Jemison spent eight days in orbit on STS-47, logging 190 hours, 30 minutes and 23 seconds in space, before returning to Earth on Sept. 20, 1992. It would be her only spaceflight.
Jemison retired from NASA in 1993 and founding her Jemison Group. as a consulting firm that same year. Remember Jemison’s Star Trek inspiration? It came full circle in 1993 when Jemison appeared as a lieutenant on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in the episode “Second Chances” during the sixth season.
Jemison has also led the 100-Year Starship project to encourage the development of a mission visit another star. In 2017, Jemison became an official Lego minifigure in the Women of NASA Lego set.
Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.
On today in area! Sept. 11, 1985: The Worldwide Cometary Explorer makes 1st comet flyby in historical past