{"id":35991,"date":"2022-09-06T08:09:29","date_gmt":"2022-09-06T08:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/?p=111700"},"modified":"2022-09-06T09:10:11","modified_gmt":"2022-09-06T09:10:11","slug":"the-story-of-mae-jemison-the-first-african-american-woman-in-space","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/the-story-of-mae-jemison-the-first-african-american-woman-in-space\/","title":{"rendered":"The story of Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Ezzy Pearson\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 06 September 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

W<\/span>hen Mae Jemison was 12 years old, she watched enraptured as Neil Armstrong took his first steps across the surface of the Moon during the Apollo 11<\/a> landing.<\/p>\n

But there was one thing that upset her: none of the people being sent into space looked like her.<\/p>\n

Later in life, she would be the one to change that.<\/p>\n

On 12 September 1992, Jemison became the first Black woman to fly in space.<\/p>\n

Read our pick of the women astronauts<\/a> who changed spaceflight forever.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Mae Jemison\u2019s historic flight saw her become the first African American woman to travel into space. Here, Jemison looks out the aft flight deck ports on Space Shuttle Endeavour\u2019s STS-47 mission. Credit: NASA<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

\u201cAs a little girl growing up on the south side of Chicago in the \u201860s I always knew I was going to be in space,\u201d Jemison said in a 2013 speech at Duke University.<\/p>\n

There was, however, one Black female space-farer Jemison could turn to as a role model in her youth, albeit a fictional one: Star Trek<\/i><\/span>\u2019s Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, played by Nichelle Nichols<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Encouraged by her example, Jemison pursued the sciences, eventually attaining her medical degree in 1981.<\/p>\n

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Actor Nichelle Nichols pictured at Mission Control. Credit: NASA<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Mae Jemison\u2019s early career<\/strong><\/h2>\n

During her early career, Jemison served as a general practitioner, conducted relief work throughout Africa with the Peace Corps, helped research vaccines with the Centre for Disease Control and, somehow, also found time to learn Russian, Japanese and Swahili.<\/p>\n

Then in 1985, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space, rekindling Jemison\u2019s long-held dreams.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI picked up the phone. I called down to Johnson Space Center. I said \u2018I would like to be an astronaut\u2019. They didn\u2019t laugh! I turned in the application,\u201d Jemison told the website The Mary Sue<\/a> in 2018.<\/p>\n

Jemison joins NASA<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Mae Jemison suits up for mission STS-47. Credit: NASA<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

In 1987, 2,000 people applied to join NASA\u2019s Astronaut Group 12.\u00a015 were accepted, including Jemison.<\/p>\n

After completing her training, in 1989 she was assigned to STS-47, a joint mission with the Japanese space agency on which she would conduct a myriad of materials and life science experiments alongside her fellow astronauts.<\/p>\n

After a three-year wait, Jemison finally achieved her dream on 12 September 1992 when the Space Shuttle<\/a> Endeavour blasted off on mission STS-47.<\/p>\n

Mae Jemison spent 8 days in space, orbiting Earth 127 times.<\/p>\n

As a nod to the woman who inspired her, Jemison would open communications every shift by repeating Uhura\u2019s signature phrase, \u201cHailing frequencies open\u201d.<\/p>\n

Keen to represent people who hadn\u2019t been seen in space before, she brought several artefacts with her including a statue from the women\u2019s society of Bundu in West Africa and a pennant from the first African American sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha.<\/p>\n

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Jemison logged over 190 hours on STS-47, her first and only mission. Credit: NASA<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

She returned to Earth on 20 September, completing what would be her only flight.<\/p>\n

In 1993 she left NASA but continued to advocate for science education, particularly among minority students.<\/p>\n

Since then she has founded the Jemison Group Inc, which investigates the social and cultural impacts of technological advancements, and the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence (named after her mother) which helps children to develop \u2018personal excellence\u2019, as well as taking professorships at Dartmouth College and Cornell University.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jemison\u2019s space journey came full circle in 1993 when LeVar Burton, the actor who played Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation<\/i><\/span>, discovered that Jemison was a fan of the show and invited her to appear.<\/p>\n

She played Lieutenant Palmer in a cameo appearance in the episode Second Chances, the first real astronaut to appear on the show.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Nichelle Nichols and Dr. Mae Jemison at Silicon Valley Comic Con, California, USA in 2018. Photo By Paul Chinn\/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Two decades later, in 2012, she took on the task of ensuring the future portrayed on Star Trek<\/i><\/span> becomes a reality, when her foundation was awarded the 100 Year Starship project, an initiative to push forward the progress of human spaceflight to another star within the next 100 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to make sure we\u2019re using the full wealth of human talent: across ethnicity, across gender, across geography, across disciplines,\u201d Jemison said to PBS\u2019s Nova<\/i><\/span> programme in 2015.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll the capabilities that are needed for a successful journey to another star system by\u00a0 humans, are all the capabilities that we need to sustain ourselves as humans on this planet.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so we believe pursuing an extraordinary tomorrow creates a better world today.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in the September 2022 issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n

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