An AFRO salute to Dr. Mae C. Jemison, the first African-American woman astronaut to travel to space – AFRO American Newspapers

By Tawanda W. Johnson, Particular to the AFRO

Dr. Mae C. Jemison, the primary African-American girl astronaut to journey to area, has at all times pushed the boundaries of what some individuals thought potential for her.

In her guide, “Discover The place the Wind Goes,” Jemison, 67, tells the story of how, throughout the early Nineteen Sixties, she declared her want to turn out to be a scientist to her elementary college class on the Southside of Chicago. Jemison’s instructor asks her if she meant to say “nurse” as an alternative of “scientist.” To make her place abundantly clear, Jemison says that, together with her palms on her hips: “No, I imply a scientist!”

She would go on to face different doubters all through her life. However Jemison didn’t let the naysayers maintain her from reaching her aim. On Sept. 12, 1992, she made historical past, touring with six different astronauts to area on the shuttle Endeavor, the place they spent eight days earlier than returning to Earth. 

Jemison labored as a science mission specialist, conducting experiments on the crew that concerned movement illness and bone cells. The historic second wasn’t misplaced on Jemison who writes in her guide, “Wanting down and throughout me, seeing the Earth, the moon and the celebs–I simply felt like I belonged proper there.”

Earlier than reaching her aim of turning into an astronaut, it was clear that Jemison was destined for greatness. At age 16, she graduated from highschool with honors. In 1977, she earned bachelor’s levels in chemical engineering and African and African American research from Stanford College. In 1981, she obtained a medical diploma at age 25 from Cornell College earlier than serving for 2 years within the Peace Corps as a medical officer in Africa. Moreover, she speaks Russian, Japanese and Swahili. 

Since her historic second in area, Jemison has been lauded with many honors, together with being named to the Girls’s Corridor of Fame, the Johnson Publishing TrailBlazer Award, and Individuals Journal’s “Fifty Most Lovely Individuals within the World.” Moreover, she is a member of the Nationwide Academy of Drugs. 

In 1993, Jemison was the primary astronaut to look on the science fiction sequence, “Star Trek.” A longtime fan of the present, she was impressed with the range of characters featured on the sequence, together with Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed Lt. Uhura, an African communications officer. 

That very same 12 months, Jemison retired from NASA and began a expertise consulting firm that merged social points with technological design. By her new enterprise, she developed The Earth We Share, a world science camp for college students. She additionally taught environmental research at Dartmouth School. In 2012, she started the 100-Yr Starship, an initiative funded by the Protection Superior Analysis Tasks Company to make human interstellar journey a actuality inside the subsequent 100 years. 

Jemison who now boasts titles of doctor, engineer, educator, social scientist, entrepreneur and former NASA astronaut, resides in Houston together with her pet cats. She continues to encourage a brand new technology of area explorers by way of varied initiatives and is broadly identified for the inspirational quote: “By no means be restricted by different individuals’s creativeness; by no means restrict others due to your personal restricted creativeness.”