On Sept. 12, 1992, NASA astronaut Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to go to space.
In NASA’s early days, women and people of color were never selected to go to space. NASA didn’t send a woman to space until the seventh space shuttle mission in 1983. NASA launched the first Black man in space, astronaut Guion Bluford, on the following mission that same year.
But it would take another nine years for NASA to finally select a Black woman to fly on STS-47, the 50th space shuttle mission. Jemison was a trained engineer and licensed physician who served in the Peace Corps before applying to become an astronaut.
She worked as a mission specialist on STS-47 and logged over 190 hours in space. STS-47 was her only mission. In 1993, she retired from NASA and went on to found her own company, the Jemison Group, which is a technology consulting firm.
Why it mattered
Mae Jemison’s historic launch on STS-47 was a milestone for Black astronauts and NASA’s growth into a more diverse space agency.
Jemison, who was born in Alabama and grew up in Chicago, joined NASA’s astronaut corps in 1987 as an astronaut candidate after years working as a the Area Peace Corp Medical Officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa (from 1983 to 1985). Before that, she earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University (where she also studied African American Studies), and later a doctorate in medicine from Cornell University. She was serving as a General Practitioner in medicine when she applied to be a NASA astronaut.
Jemison has said she was fascinated by space from a young age and found inspiration the Star Trek’s Lt. Uhura, a Black woman in space on television, before going on to university. (We’ll return to Star Trek in a minute).
As the science mission specialist on STS-47, Jemison oversaw 44 different experiments for Japan and the United States inside the Spacelab module aboard space shuttle Endeavour. She was also the co-investigator on a bone cell study that flew on the same mission.
Jemison spent eight days in orbit on STS-47, logging 190 hours, 30 minutes and 23 seconds in space, before returning to Earth on Sept. 20, 1992. It would be her only spaceflight.
Jemison retired from NASA in 1993 and founding her Jemison Group. as a consulting firm that same year. Remember Jemison’s Star Trek inspiration? It came full circle in 1993 when Jemison appeared as a lieutenant on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in the episode “Second Chances” during the sixth season.
Jemison has also led the 100-Year Starship project to encourage the development of a mission visit another star. In 2017, Jemison became an official Lego minifigure in the Women of NASA Lego set.
Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.
On this day in space! Sept. 11, 1985: The International Cometary Explorer makes 1st comet flyby in history
