posted 07-05-2022 10:52 AM               

Space Cover #657: Women in Space

At first look, and maybe even the second, you might wonder what a science fiction woman might have to do with the real astronaut adjacent to her photo.

And now, the rest of the story —

Gene Rodenberry selected Nichelle Nichols to represent the first woman of mind and responsibility to the deck of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek. Until then women were simply window dressing, with roles of damsels in distress, as was Jean Rogers as Dale Arden in the first serials of "Flash Gordon." Other women were the daughters of scientists. But Nichols' character was the communications officer.

After the first season, Nichols wanted to leave Star Trek for Broadway, but Martin Luther King cajoled her into staying on as a role model. When Nichols made a speech at an NAACP meeting in Washington DC, lamenting the fact that NASA continued to turn down applications of women and minorities, two NASA officials were in the audience. They asked her to come to NASA the following morning where they asked her to work for NASA in the role of recruiting minority and women as astronauts. Flabbergasted, Nichole agreed.

One of her first recruits was Sally Ride. She found about a dozen qualified people including African-American Charles Bolden who later became a NASA Administrator. She also recruited Mae Jamison an African-American woman who later had a small part in one of the Star Trek episodes.

posted 07-08-2022 07:39 PM               

While it is true that Nichelle Nichols was part of NASA's effort to attract (recruit) women and minorities for the first class of space shuttle astronauts, Lynn Sherr, Ride's biographer, says that Ride was unaware of that campaign. In "Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space," Sherr wrote that it was a front page article in Ride's college newspaper that alerted her to the opportunity to apply.

posted 07-10-2022 03:54 PM               

Sally Ride -- my heart aches right now. Sally was one of my first and biggest achievements. She once thanked me for my recruitment efforts while under contract to NASA, saying "If it hadn't been for you I might not be here." Sally carved out her own place in history as the first American woman in space, but she was much more than that. She was a symbol for all of the little girls that needed to see what was achievable if you worked hard and studied hard. Sally was a physicist and had a love for the Sciences - a field of study that we should all encourage young people to follow.

Many people have said that I was their inspiration, something that fills my heart with joy every time that I hear it. When NASA asked me to help them find the first qualified women and minorities to join the then all-male-all-white astronaut corp, I did so with great enthusiasm. One of the first that my company was able to reach was a beautiful, young, brilliant woman named Sally Ride. She not only joined the astronaut corps - she revolutionized it by blazing the trail that so many female astronauts followed. She became MY inspiration to continue to search to find the next Sally Ride, or Dr. Mae Jemison. I know that right now there's a little Sally or Mae out there, reading about what Sally achieved in her life, and deciding that Mars sounds like a great place to visit... Dream On! Sally will lead the way!