Mae Jemison - America's first African-American female astronaut

On September 12, 1992, NASA's space shuttle Endeavour launched into space on an eight-day orbital mission.

On this flight, the spacecraft carried Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space.

Burning Dream

Mae Jemison on the space shuttle Endeavour.

In January 1987 in Los Angeles (California, USA), Mae Jemison , 30 years old, returned to her apartment after work and saw in the mailbox outside the door an envelope from NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This was the letter she had long been waiting for.

Two decades ago, as a nine-year-old girl, Mae watched the first episode of Star Trek, the science fiction series about space travel, on television and embraced the idea of ​​becoming an astronaut.

Mae finished high school early at age 16 and attended Stanford University, majoring in chemical engineering. After graduation, she went on to medical school in New York and interned in Thailand, Cuba, Cambodia, and East Africa. After stints with the Peace Corps and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mae took a job in Los Angeles.

Only then did she decide to apply for NASA's astronaut program, knowing it would be difficult. One major hurdle for her was that NASA had never hired a black woman as an astronaut before.

Now, Mae trembled as she opened the letter from NASA, read it quickly, and screamed with joy. She had been shortlisted from two thousand applicants and invited to Houston for the next round of selection.

A few weeks later, Mae traveled to the Johnson Space Center in Texas for a physical and psychological evaluation. After all the screening process was complete, Mae received the call she had dreamed of since she was a little girl. She was one of two women among NASA's 15 newest astronauts, and the only black one.

Over the next two years, Mae completed the basic training that all astronauts must undergo. She then became a specialist in computer software used on the space shuttle, working at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

It wasn't until September 1989 that Mae received the news she'd been waiting for. She'd been selected to be a science specialist on the space shuttle Endeavour.

From Space to… Hollywood

Astronaut Mae Jemison.

On September 12, 1992, three years after being selected as an astronaut trainee, Mae looked down from the cockpit of the space shuttle Endeavour at Earth. It was a view only 200 astronauts and cosmonauts had ever seen before—and none of them were black women.

But Mae didn't have much time to soak in the amazing view. Astronauts' schedules in space are tightly controlled, and Mae had to get to work on her assigned tasks.

At Spacelab - an orbiting laboratory launched into space inside the shuttle's cargo bay - Mae oversaw experiments, adjusting equipment settings. She also tested whether intravenous fluids could be administered in zero gravity.

She took measurements to help scientists on Earth understand the effects of being in space on bone cells. She also studied how space travel affects the reproductive cycles of amphibians, by artificially inseminating the eggs of four frogs.

After three years of specialized training, Mae was proficient in performing these experiments but still felt the weight of expectation on her shoulders. This shuttle mission had some pioneering achievements. It carried the first married couple in space together and the first Japanese astronaut on a NASA mission.

But Mae understood the importance of her 'first time' better than anyone. She believed that many black women who could do the job as well as she did were afraid to apply because the astronaut program seemed too 'white' and too masculine.

Mae therefore hoped to be a role model for other black women. To emphasize her roots, she brought two special mementos with her – a small statue from West Africa and a photo of Bessie Coleman, the first black American woman to earn a pilot's license.

Endeavour returned to Earth on September 20, 1992. Upon landing, Mae logged seven days, 22 hours, 30 minutes, and 23 seconds in space, orbiting the Earth 127 times.

Although Mae Jemison never made it to space again, she did make it to another spaceship, only this time, she took a mission to a place no astronaut had ever been before: Hollywood.

Upon returning to Earth, Mae received an invitation that she accepted without hesitation: to appear as an extra on the television show Star Trek: The Next Generation. This was the first time a real-life astronaut had guest starred on a spaceship.

Enterprise in the show. At first, Mae was a little nervous about meeting famous actors like Patrick Stewart and LeVar Burton. But the show's casting department was very enthusiastic about Mae, asking her hundreds of questions about what it was like to actually fly into space. Thankfully, Mae had time to answer them all since she only had to learn lines for one scene.

Mae's appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation completes a circle that began when she was just nine years old. Mae overcame all odds and made her name in the stars when she became the first black woman to fly into orbit.