First African American Woman in Space: Dr. Mae C. Jemison

 As I continue to post about inspirational women in STEM careers, as part of Women's History Month, this week I celebrate the great career of the first African American Woman in space. It was a joy to write about their story and journey: 

Becoming an astronaut is hard enough, but one woman overcame obstacles to become the first African American woman in space. Jemison was keen to study science from an early age. Born in the 1950s, Jemison would let nothing stop her from becoming one of the most accomplished African American women in history. She was born in Decatur, Alabama, but grew up in Chicago. From a very early age, she knew she wanted to study science. As a child, she spent hours and hours in the library reading about science and astronomy. She passionately followed the Apollo missions and never missed an episode of Star Trek. Lieutenant Uhura was her chief inspiration for becoming an astronaut. She fell in love with dancing at age eleven and took lessons in many different styles. When she wasn’t obsessing over science, her thoughts were consumed by the creativity and expression of choreography. This constant shift in her attention between the arts and sciences helped her appreciate the creativity of science and the analytical side of art, a connection she believes is key to building a good future for society. She had also choreographed a music and dance production, and headed the Black Students’ Union, she was torn between going to medical school and taking a shot at being a professional dancer. Though her parents were permissive, they were also practical. As Mae likes to say, her mother helped her make that decision.

 

She worked hard and graduated from high school when she was just 16. It wasn’t until years later that she realized the level of confidence her parents must have had in her ability to survive thousands of miles away from home. She points to her stubbornness and youthful arrogance as her weapons against uncertainty and the sexism she encountered from some professors who ignored her questions and belittled her observations. At that early age, she travelled to California to attend Stanford University. Being one of the few African Americans in her class, she experienced racial discrimination from students and teachers, but that didn’t stop her from graduating with two degrees in four years, one in chemical engineering and one in African American studies.

Jemison didn’t start her career in space. She first attended Cornell Medical School, where she got her doctorate in medicine and practiced general medicine. During graduate school she spent time in Kenya, Thailand, and Cuba providing primary medical care to the citizens. After a hospital internship and a brief stint as a general practitioner in California, Mae joined the Peace Corps as a medical officer. She spent most of her time in Sierra Leone overseeing hundreds of volunteers. When one of them came down with malaria, Mae was convinced that it was bacterial meningitis. He would soon die without the proper care, but they were not equipped to treat this. She ordered an emergency medical evacuation to an Air Force base in Germany, which cost upwards of 80,000 dollers to set in motion. The embassy gave her trouble and questioned her authority to do it, but she stood her ground and they called it in. Mae stayed by the patient’s side for 56 hours until he was successfully treated for meningitis. Her talents also didn’t stop in science. Jemison is fluent in Japanese, Russian and Swahili. She used this and her medical studies to her advantage and joined the Peace Corps in 1983 to help people in Africa for two years.

Jemison applied for the astronaut program at NASA in 1985. Unfortunately, NASA stopped accepting applications after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986. Jemison tried her luck again in 1987 and was one of the 15 people chosen out of 2000 applicants. In Sept. 1992, she joined six other astronauts on the Endeavor for eight days, making her the first African American woman in space. On her mission, she made 127 orbits around the Earth.

 She flew to space aboard Endeavour as part of  STS-47, a joint mission between the US and Japan to experiment with life science and materials processing in microgravity. During the eight-day tour, Mae did bone cell research, performed weightlessness and motion sickness experiments on herself and other crew members, and oversaw a zero-G tadpole growth experiment. The most memorable moment for Mae happened on the flight deck. The commander invited her upstairs to check out the view as the shuttle passed over Chicago. She looked down and smiled on the memory of that little girl who was certain she would go to space. After Mae returned to Earth, Levar Burton discovered she was a Trekkie and asked if she wanted to be on an episode of The Next Generation. Mae appeared as Lieutenant Palmer in the season 6 episode “Second Chances”, the one where Riker encounters a duplicate of himself created years earlier. Mae resigned from NASA in 1993 to explore the impact of technology on society. Soon after, she started an international space camp called The Earth We Share that focuses on scientific literacy and problem solving for middle- and high school kids. She is the current Principal of the 100 Year Starship Project, a DARPA-NASA initiative aimed at advancing interstellar travel.

Today she spends much of her time giving talks about the importance of contributing to culture in ways that positively affect the future. She gave a TED talk in 2002 about the importance of re-integrating science and arts in education, because they both have a big impact on future generations. To her, intuition and analysis are equally important tools in our attempt to understand the universe around us.

She has also her own consulting company, became a professor at Cornell, launched the Jemison Institute for Advancing Technology in Developing Countries, and much more. With all her accomplishments, it’s no surprise Jemison was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, the National Medical Association Hall of Fame and the Texas Science Hall of Fame.

 

In 2023, after an extraordinary career with NASA, she acknowledges the progress being made in education but says there's still a long way to go, especially for women and minorities.

"I'm worried about education because in some ways, I think our society does a lot of lip service to it, but we don't invest in it in the same way."

Jemison can now not only be considered a first in her field but an inspiration to a new generation of space travellers. With the upcoming Artemis mission set to launch in 2024, NASA will land its first female person of colour on the moon.

 "We have the full representation of our society, So the first woman of colour, the first woman in space, the first person of colour, no matter how they classify it, we need to take advantage of the full range of talent."