The First Black Woman in Space--Mae Jemison!

Our Way Black History Fact examines the life of the first Black woman in space…Mae Jemison!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
But for now it is time for the way Black
History fact. And today's way Black History fact comes from
Women's History dot Org. We're gonna be talking about the
first Black woman in space. Stick around, You're gonna love this.
Born in nineteen fifty six, May Jemison received degrees in
chemical engineering and African American studies and went on to
become a medical doctor and officer in the Peace Corps.

(00:20):
In nineteen eighty three, after watching Sally Ride, Jamison decided
to apply to the astronaut program at NASA. On September
twelf nineteen ninety two, Jemison went into orbit aboard the
Space Shuttle Endeavor as the first African American woman in space.
Jemison left NASA in ninety three, continuing to work for
the benefit of others as an educator, entrepreneur, and author.
May Carrol Jemison was born in Decatur, Alabama, on October seventeenth,

(00:42):
nineteen fifty six. She spent her first three and a
half years in the small Alabama town. Her mother, unhappy
with job opportunities in the South, joined the Great Migration
and moved to Chicago, Illinois. Her parents valued education. Charlie
Jemison a maintenance supervisor, and Dorothy Jemison, a teacher, took
their children to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry in
the Yield Museum of Natural History to visit and learn.

(01:04):
As soon as she learned to read, May checked out
science books from the library, reading about evolution, dinosaurs, stars,
and planets. Once Jimison graduated high school, she left Chicago
to attend Stanford University in California. She served as the
president of the Black Student Union. A the next step
in her well I did two, and so did you,
and so we like that. The next step in her

(01:26):
educational journey would lead her to Cornell Medical School. While there,
she traveled to Cuba and led a study for the
American Medical Student Association. Jemison also became president of the
Cornell chapter of the Student National Medical Association and helped
coordinate regional health fairs. She also worked as a at
a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand. Jemison graduated from Cornell

(01:47):
in nineteen eighty one with a doctorate in medicine. After
her graduation from medical school, she interned at the Los
Angeles County Medical Center and later practiced general medicine on
June eighteen, nineteen eighty three, Sally Ryde became the first
American women in space. This heroic event paired with Jemison's
childhood fascination with space and inspired her to apply to
the astronaut program at NASA in nineteen eighty five. However,

(02:08):
due to the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in
nineteen eighty six, the program was paused. Jimmison reapplied and
was accepted in nineteen eighty seven. She was one of
fifteen people chosen for the program out of two thousand applications.
She was selected at NASA Astronaut Group twelve. She received
her first mission on the STS forty seven crew as
a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor. On September second,

(02:30):
ninety two, Jimmison and six other astronauts rocketed into space
for their mission. With this stressful launch made Jemison became
the first African American woman in space. While in orbit,
Jemminson conducted experiments that took advantage of the microgravity environment,
where objects appeared to be weightless. The mission, known as
space Lab Jay, conducted over forty four different experiments. According

(02:51):
to NASA quote Material Science Investigations covered such fields as biotechnology,
electronic materials, fluid dynamics and transport phenomena, glasses and sore,
metals and alloys, and acceleration measurements. Life sciences included experiments
on human health, cell separation and biology, developmental biology, animal
and human physiology and behavior, space radiation, and biological rhythms.

(03:13):
Test subjects included the crew Japanese coyfish, captured animal plant cells,
chicken embryos, fruit flies, fungi and plant seeds, and frogs
and frog eggs. The Endeavorment Crew made one hundred and
twenty seven orbits around the Earth safely and returned to
the Kentuck Kennedy Sorry Kennedy Space Center in Florida on

(03:34):
September twentieth, nineteen ninety two. And her book Jemison remembers strange,
But I always knew I'd be here, looking down and
all around me, seeing all the Earth, the moon, the stars.
I just felt I belonged right there, in fact any
place in the entire universe. And so we wanted to
take a moment to shout her out, because that's a
little ebony excellence women's history, and of course you're way

(03:56):
black history fact. She's checking a lot of boxes this month,
and yes, definitely when I needed