On September 12, 1992, NASA’s Space Shuttle Endeavour was launched into space on an 8-day mission in orbit.
On this flight, the shuttle carried Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space.
A Burning Dream
Mae Jemison on the Space Shuttle Endeavour.
In January 1987, in Los Angeles, California, Mae Jemison, 30, returned to her apartment after work and found an envelope from NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in her mailbox. This was the letter she had been eagerly waiting for.
Two decades earlier, as a 9-year-old girl, Mae had watched the first episode of Star Trek, a science fiction series about space travel, and nurtured the dream of becoming an astronaut.
Mae completed high school early at the age of 16 and then attended Stanford University, majoring in chemical engineering. After graduating, she continued her studies at medical school in New York and interned in Thailand, Cuba, Cambodia, and East Africa. After a stint working with the Peace Corps and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mae took a job in Los Angeles.
It was only then that she decided to apply for NASA’s astronaut program, despite knowing the challenges ahead. A significant barrier for her was that NASA had never hired a Black woman as an astronaut before.
Now, trembling with excitement, Mae opened the letter from NASA, read it quickly, and screamed with joy. She had made it to the shortlist of 100 candidates from two thousand applicants and was invited to Houston for the next selection round.
A few weeks later, Mae traveled to the Johnson Space Center in Texas for a health check and psychological tests. After all the selection processes were completed, Mae received the call she had dreamed of since childhood. She was one of two women among NASA’s latest group of 15 astronauts and the only Black woman.
In the following two years, Mae completed the basic training that all astronauts must undergo. She then became a computer software specialist for use on the shuttle, working at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
It wasn’t until September 1989 that Mae received the news she had been waiting for. She was selected as a mission specialist on the Space Shuttle Endeavour.
From Space to… Hollywood
Astronaut Mae Jemison.
On September 12, 1992, three years after being selected as a trainee astronaut, Mae was in the cockpit of the Space Shuttle Endeavour looking down at Earth. It was a view that only 200 astronauts and cosmonauts had witnessed before – and none of them were Black women.
However, Mae did not have much time to soak in the magnificent view. Astronauts’ schedules in space are tightly controlled, and Mae had to get to work on her assigned tasks.
At Spacelab – a laboratory in orbit launched into space inside the shuttle’s payload bay, Mae oversaw experiments and adjusted equipment settings. She also tested whether intravenous fluids could be administered in a microgravity environment.
She made measurements to help scientists on Earth understand the impact of being in space on bone cells. Additionally, she researched how space travel affects the reproductive cycles of amphibians by artificially fertilizing the eggs of four frogs.
After three years of specialized training, Mae expertly conducted these experiments but still felt the weight of expectations on her shoulders. This shuttle mission had several pioneering achievements. It carried the first married couple together into space and NASA’s first Japanese astronaut.
But Mae understood the significance of her own “first” more than anyone else. She believed that many Black women could do this job as well as she could but were deterred from applying because the astronaut program seemed too “white” and too male-dominated.
Therefore, Mae hoped to be a role model for other Black women. To emphasize her heritage, she brought along two special mementos – a small statue from West Africa and a photograph of Bessie Coleman, the first African American woman to earn a pilot’s license.
Endeavour returned to Earth on September 20, 1992. Upon landing, Mae recorded seven days, 22 hours, 30 minutes, and 23 seconds in space, orbiting the Earth 127 times.
Although Mae Jemison never flew into space again, she did board another spacecraft, but this time, she undertook a mission where no astronaut had gone before: Hollywood.
As soon as she returned to Earth, Mae received an invitation she accepted without hesitation: to appear as a guest star in the television show Star Trek: The Next Generation. This marked the first time a real astronaut guest-starred on a starship
in the series. Initially, Mae was a bit nervous meeting famous actors like Patrick Stewart and LeVar Burton. However, the show’s casting department was very enthusiastic about Mae, and they asked her hundreds of questions about what it was really like to fly in space. Fortunately, Mae had time to answer all of them as she only had to learn lines for one scene.
Mae’s appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation completed a circle that began when she was just nine years old. Mae overcame every obstacle and etched her name among the stars as she became the first Black woman to orbit the Earth.
