Tag Archives: space

She Had a Dream: Mae C. Jemison, First African American Woman in Space

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Have you ever had a dream of what you wanted to do in life? How about a wish that you hoped every day would come true?  Were you ever truly inspired by something or someone at an early age that shaped the course of your life? Living a lifelong dream does not come to many, but for Dr. Mae Jemison, space travel was always an area of fascination. Space travel was her aspiration from an early age, and together with inspiration from astronaut predecessors Guy Bluford, Jr. and Sally Ride, Jemison not only achieved her goal of flying in space, but also did so as the first African American woman on September 12, 1992.

Mae Jemison

Jemison before her shuttle flight in July 1992

Jemison’s mother was a teacher and her father, a maintenance supervisor, while she grew up in Chicago. Jemison attended the Chicago Public School System and achieved honors in math and science. Although she had the support of her family, teachers and school staff discouraged Jemison from pursuing an education in science. Speaking to a crowd of students at her Chicago alma mater, Jemison recalled the propensity of some individuals to place her in a box. “Sometimes people want to tell you to act or to be a certain way. Sometimes people want to limit you because of their own limited imaginations.”

She attended Stanford University at the age of 16 and earned her bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and African American Studies. She went on to receive her medical degree from Cornell University and served two years in the Peace Corps in West Africa as a staff physician.  Her responsibilities there included managing the health care delivery system for the Peace Corps and the U.S. Embassy in Liberia and Sierra Leone.  Her background includes research in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, reproductive biology, and a Hepatitis B and rabies vaccine.

In the wake of the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy, Jemison left her private medical practice in Los Angeles and applied to become an astronaut candidate. She was one of 15 chosen from a pool of 2,000 applicants in 1988. She completed the intensive training, eventually being assigned to STS-47, a Spacelab Life Sciences mission. On this eight-day flight Jemison served as a science mission specialist and carried out experiments on the effects of space motion sickness, frog fertilization in space, and bone loss during spaceflight.

The astronauts often bring along small personal mementos. Jemison chose several that were special to her:  a flag from the Organization of African Unity, an Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority banner, and proclamations from the Chicago Public School System and the DuSable Museum of African American History.

Despite all of her achievements, and the fact that Jemison has served as an astronaut, she still confronts institutionalized prejudice similar to what she experienced as a student in Chicago. After Jemison returned from space, Jemison visited an elementary school and the principal told her that, at his school, he planned to have male teachers inform the children about the opportunities at Space Camp since men are more knowledgeable in science.  Jemison asserted that one has to be mindful of preconceived ideas and perceptions of individuals.

After leaving NASA, Dr. Jemison went on to teach at Dartmouth College, formed a company that researches advanced technologies, is an active public speaker, and continues to urge students to pursue their dreams and pursue math and science.  She stresses the importance of excelling in school.  Because of her achievements, a school in Detroit was named in her honor, the Mae C. Jemison Academy. Dr. Jemison gladly accepted the position of role model and hoped to remind other African Americans that the sky is the limit!

Mae Jemison

STS-47 Spacelab-J

Vickie Lindsey is an intern in the Space History Division.

Quietly Soaring into History: First African American in Space

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As August 30 approaches, a significant anniversary in American history may come along virtually unnoticed, just as it almost did twenty-seven years ago. Two months after Sally K. Ride rode into history as the first American woman in space, a shy Philadelphia-born African American also flew into history on the next space shuttle mission. The media, even magazine covers, celebrated the milestone of the first American woman in space with fanfare, but in comparison, the next space milestone received little attention. Considering his quiet and humble demeanor, this may have suited him just fine. Who is this, you ask? Colonel Guion (Guy) S. Bluford Jr., the first African American in space.

STS-8

Guy Bluford with STS-8 Mission Crew, Challenger (1983)

Reluctant to be in the spotlight, Bluford was a 40-year-old Air Force officer with a doctorate in Aerospace Engineering. His goal was not to become the first African American in space, but simply to fly into space, do his job there, and return safely. Growing up in a middle-class household with educated parents in the 1950s and 1960s, he was raised to believe that he could do anything he wanted despite his race. His mother was a teacher and his father, a mechanical engineer. While enjoying math and science, he still had to work hard in school. Ignoring the advice of his high school advisor to learn a trade or skill, Bluford went on to college to earn his undergraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering at Penn State University in 1964.

The 1960s was a hotbed of unrest in the midst of the Vietnam War as well as the Civil Rights movement, but Guy Bluford did not see the color of his skin as a barrier to achieving his goals in life. Always having a love for all things aviation, he achieved his lifelong dream of becoming a pilot and earned his wings from the Air Force in 1966. Bluford went to Vietnam and flew 144 combat missions. He logged over 5,200 hours piloting an assortment of aircraft including the F-4C jet fighter (very similar to the F-4S on view at the Udvar-Hazy Center), F-15, U-2/TR-1 (similar to the U-2C on view at the National Mall Building) and F-5A/B, as well as the T-33, T-37, and T-38 trainers. As a member of the 557th Tactical Fighter Squadron, he came home decorated with medals. After returning to the United States, he went back to school, earning his masters and doctorate in Aerospace Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology.

In 1977, Bluford applied for the astronaut corps, and he was one of 35 candidates selected from almost 8,000 applicants in 1978. Among the new astronauts were two other African-Americans, Dr. Ronald E. McNair and Lt. Colonel Fredrick D. Gregory, and six women, including Sally Ride. Of the three African Americans, Bluford knew there was a chance that he would be the first one in space but never made that his goal. He said, “All of us knew that one of us would eventually step into that role. . .I probably told people that I would probably prefer not being in that role. . .because I figured being the No. 2 guy would probably be a lot more fun.”

Guy Bluford

Guy Bluford as a new astronaut

Historically, astronauts were selected from a pool of white male test pilots. NASA’s inclusion of scientists, engineers and medical doctors in the selection criteria for shuttle missions opened the way to a more diverse astronaut corps, attracting qualified women and minorities. Bluford joined the crew of STS-8 as mission specialist (scientist astronaut), further changing the public face of NASA. He occupied the same seat behind the pilot as Sally Ride. His job was to deploy a communications-weather satellite, perform biomedical experiments, and test the shuttle’s 50-foot robotic arm.

Despite his modesty, Bluford accepted the importance of his role as a pioneer. On August 30, 1983, Guy Bluford joined the ranks of other prominent African American aviators: Bessie Coleman, Eugene Bullard, Chauncey Spencer, and Alfred Anderson. He flew on three more shuttle missions in 1985, 1991, and 1992, spending almost 800 hours in space. After retiring from the Air Force and leaving NASA, Bluford has served in the corporate sector as a senior manager in aerospace and engineering firms. Since his first flight, thirteen other African Americans have become astronauts, including the first African American woman in space, Mae C. Jemison.

Truly and Bluford asleep on middeck

Commander Richard Truly and Mission Specialist Guy Bluford asleep on Challenger middeck, STS-8 mission.

Despite the muted press coverage of Bluford’s historic mission in 1983, NASA and the media had well noted the passing of gender and race barriers in 1978 when the new class of astronauts was introduced. To commemorate this achievement, mannequins of Sally Ride and Guy Bluford in their own flight suits stand side-by-side in the Moving Beyond Earth gallery of the National Air and Space Museum.

Vickie Lindsey is a summer intern in the Space History Division.

Reflections on Post-Cold War Issues for International Space Cooperation

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In the 1990s the United States collaborative space policy entered an extended period of transition from the earlier era of Cold War, one in which NASA has been compelled to deal with international partners on a much more even footing than ever before.

Apollo 17

Will the next flag on the Moon be a national flag or one representative of humankind as a whole? This image from Apollo 17 shows the U.S. flag on the Moon, an important symbolic moment for the United States in the Cold War race to the Moon with the Soviet Union. Those times have passed and cooperative efforts are the norm for the future.

This was true for several reasons. U.S. preeminence in space technology was rapidly declining, especially in launcher technology as other nations built their own internal capabilities. This was especially true of the European Space Agency’s superb Ariane launcher. This made it increasingly possible for other nations to “go it alone,” as a vernacular expression states.

U.S. commitment to sustained “preeminence” in space activities also waned and significantly less public monies went into NASA missions. The Clinton administration’s “National Space Policy” of September 29, 1996, for example, abandoned the language of preeminence that had been used since the origins of the space race in the 1950s. In addition, NASA’s budget declined in terms of real dollars every year from 1993 to 2000.

Of international cooperative projects that remained, NASA increasingly acceded to the demands of collaborators to develop critical systems and technologies. This overturned a longstanding policy of not allowing partners onto the critical technological path, something that had been flirted with but not accepted in the Space Shuttle development project.

This was in large measure a pragmatic decision on the part of American officials. Because of the increasing size and complexity of projects, according to former NASA international relations chief Kenneth Pedersen in 1992, more recent projects have produced “numerous critical paths whose upkeep costs alone will defeat U.S. efforts to control and supply them.”

Pedersen added, “It seems unrealistic today to believe that other nations possessing advanced technical capabilities and harboring their own economic competitiveness objectives will be amenable to funding and developing only ancillary systems.”

In addition to these important developments, the rise of competitive economic activities in space has mitigated the prospects for future collaborations. The brutal competition for launch business, the cutthroat nature of space applications, and the rich possibilities for space-based economic activities have created a climate in which international ventures may once again become the exception.

Historian John Krige astutely commented in 1998 that “collaboration has worked most smoothly when the science or technology concerned is not of direct strategic (used here to mean commercial or military) importance. As soon as a government feels that its national interests are directly involved in a field of R&D, it would prefer to go it alone.” He also noted that the success of cooperative projects may take as their central characteristic that they have “no practical application in at least the short to medium term.”

I would add that the sole exception to this perspective might be when nations decide that for prestige or diplomatic purposes it is appropriate to cooperate in space. A superb example of this is the effort beginning in 1992 to bring the Russians into the space station program already underway by a consortium of nations as a means of building stronger ties to Russia in the early post-Cold War era.

One of the key conclusions that we might reach about the course of international cooperation between the United States and its international collaborators in space is that it has been an enormously difficult process. I am reminded of the quote attributed to Wernher von Braun, “we can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.” Even so, cooperative space endeavors have been richly rewarding and overwhelmingly useful, from all manner of scientific, technical, social, and political perspectives.

International Space Station Components

The International Space Station is the most significant international cooperative program in the history of spaceflight. This image shows the components of the station and which nation constructed them.

Kenneth Pedersen observed in 1983, “international space cooperation is not a charitable enterprise; countries cooperate because they judge it in their interest to do so.” For continued cooperative efforts in space to proceed into the twenty-first century it is imperative that those desiring them define appropriate projects and ensure that national leaders judge them as being of interest and worthy of pursuing them in a cooperative manner.

Roger D. Launius is a senior curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Is Resistance Futile?

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In Star Trek: The Next Generation the intrepid crew of the United Starship Enterprise repeatedly face the Borg, cyborgs intent on assimilating the biological creatures of the universe into their collective consciousness. Their meme, “resistance is futile,” serves as a convenient tagline for this ongoing plot device in the fictional series, but it also may foreshadow a more realistic future for humanity as we reach into space. When considering the far future and the potential for humans to colonize other bodies in the solar system and beyond, perhaps humanity will adapt to the space environment through modifications of the human body like those found on the Borg.

This idea was first broached by scientists Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline in a 1960 NASA study. They remarked: “Altering man’s bodily functions to meet the requirements of extraterrestrial environments would be more logical than providing an earthly environment for him in space.”  They proposed a variety of modifications that would allow humans to withstand radiation, the absence of atmospheric oxygen, and other hazards of space. They coined the term “cyborg” to describe this adaptation.

Sojourner and Astronaut on Mars

The classic image of humans and robots working together is depicted in this NASA artwork. Sojourner, the Mars Pathfinder rover named after former slave and famous abolitionist Sojourner Truth, is visited many years after its mission by a descendant of its namesake, in this artist’s rendering. Like the human, Sojourner the rover paved the way for those that followed. This image was produced for NASA by Pat Rawling.

Since that time, NASA has refrained from serious consideration of the ideas offered by Clynes and Kline, although a few studies in the 1960s investigated these possibilities. But what of the future, especially the distant future? To date, human presence in space has consisted of what might be characterized as extended camping trips, often a week or more but rarely exceeding a half year in length.  Yet space advocates continue to propose far lengthier stays, from planetary outposts to solar system colonization.

If colonization of the solar system, and the rest of the galaxy, is truly desirable, will it be done by Homo sapiens?  In undertaking this cosmic venture, humans might change, especially if very long periods of time are involved.  Humans born and raised on extraterrestrial locations would change naturally in response to different conditions.  Given advances in biotechnology, others might reengineer themselves.  The current debate over the superiority of humans versus robots in space could disappear in the presence of such alterations.

A provocative possibility appears in the rapid rise of biotechnology, suggesting that humans may become cyborgs through the application of sophisticated machinery in ways at least initially unrelated to space exploration. In many ways we are already there, with millions of people enjoying a better quality of life, or in some cases life itself, through the incorporation of pacemakers, joint and limb replacements, cochlear hearing implants, artificial organs, and a potential list of even more sophisticated enhancements. Future possibilities are astonishing.

How might we remake the human body to more effectively meet the rigors of space exploration? Skeptics may scoff at this possibility as nothing more than bioscience fiction, but space exploration was itself fiction in the truest sense of the word less than 75 years ago. Advances in biotechnology could take place with similar speed.

Robonaut

NASA’s Robonaut (foreground) is a step forward in terms of human/machine interaction. Here it performs a mock weld while Ames Research Center's K10 robot assists two EVA crew inspecting a previously welded seam.

The result, given sufficient time, may be the emergence of a new age of space exploration. Technological developments now beginning to take place might permit a true merger—humans equipped with robotic parts or machines possessing sentient qualities. In that sense, humans and robots would explore space together—really together.

The implications of such developments for the future of space exploration are fascinating.  They are made more interesting when one considers the degree to which humans might change during the millions of years available to colonize the galaxy. Who knows what derivations of the human form could emerge? Such developments would alter the traditional debate over space exploration in ways that provide a new paradigm quite different than the one casting humans with all of their biological limitations into the extraterrestrial realm. Such developments might make space travel more attainable, though in unconventional ways.

So, is there a Borg in our future? Possibly; even probably. In fact, we may already be there with all of the biotechnological enhancements now routinely offered to human beings. This possibility, moving as it does away from the necessity of maintaining organic life under Earth-like conditions throughout the cosmos, offers a fascinating option for space travel. If we did not require Earth-like conditions to survive, our ability to colonize strikingly diverse non-Earth-like worlds would expand. Many spheres, including those within the local solar system not currently suitable for human occupation, might prove acceptable. Is it possible that once cyborgs emerge—and undertake space travel—they will shoulder the burden of carrying the essence of humanity to other worlds? Resistance may be futile, if the Borg really are us. But they need not be feared.

Roger D. Launius is senior curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum. Howard E. McCurdy is professor of public affairs at the American University,Washington, D.C. They pubished Robots in Space: Technology, Evolution, and Interplanetary Travel (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), from which the ideas here are taken.

Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. to be awarded the National Air and Space Museum's Lifetime Achievement Award

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On April 28th, we will be awarding the National Air and Space Museum’s Trophy Award for Current and Lifetime Achievement. The Trophy was initiated in 1985 and has been given every year but one since then. This year, the Lifetime Achievement Award will be given to Christopher C. Kraft, Jr., for a lifetime of service to aerospace, especially for his role in defining the responsibilities of Mission Control for human spaceflight at NASA. Anyone who has seen the Hollywood film Apollo 13 knows how crucial the mission controllers were in saving that mission and its crew from disaster. While the filmmakers may have exaggerated a few things, in that regard they were correct. Mission controllers—at first located at Cape Canaveral, later on in Houston—were critical to the success of all the human missions into space, and it was Kraft who determined their roles and responsibilities. By the time of the first crewed Apollo missions beginning in 1968, Kraft had been promoted to be Director of Flight Operations, and although he was no longer directly “in the loop” at Mission Control in Houston,  the controllers on duty were all his disciples, following his plan.

Chris Kraft

Gene Kranz (center) and Chris Kraft (right) at the flight operations director console in the mission operations control room of JSC's mission control center.

Last July, Kraft spoke at the Museum along with the three Apollo 11 astronauts: Michael Collins, Neil Armstrong, and Edwin Aldrin, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the historic first human journey to the Moon’s surface.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9fCPhspOCQ]

In his remarks, Kraft reminded the audience how the success of Apollo depended on fundamental research done many years earlier at NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, at Langley Field, Virginia, a few miles from the town where Kraft grew up. He began working there in 1945, after graduating from college, and joined the Space Task Group shortly after the Soviet Union orbited Sputnik, when NACA was being absorbed into the newly-created NASA. It was from those humble beginnings that the triumphs of America’s space program emerged.

Dr. Chris Kraft will be participating in a live, online educational conference on Wednesday, April 28th.  Registration for the event is now open.

Paul Ceruzzi is a curator specializing in aerospace computing and electronics in the Division of Space History at the National Air and Space Museum.