From Chicago Classrooms to Earth Orbit
Mae C. Jemison was born in 1956 and grew up in Chicago, Illinois. A curious student, she entered Stanford University at just 16 and graduated with a degree in chemical engineering. She then earned a medical degree from Cornell University and served as a Peace Corps medical officer in Sierra Leone and Liberia, combining her talents in science, engineering, and medicine.
In 1987, NASA selected Jemison as one of just fifteen new astronaut candidates chosen from roughly two thousand applicants. She was assigned to STS-47, a joint mission between NASA and Japan's space agency (NASDA) that carried the Spacelab-J laboratory in the shuttle's payload bay.
On September 12, 1992, Jemison launched aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour and became the first Black woman to fly in space. As a Science Mission Specialist, she worked in Spacelab-J, which held more than forty experiments in life and materials science. Jemison studied bone cells, tested a system for making saline solution in orbit, and researched motion sickness and how weightlessness affects the body.
The mission lasted almost eight days before Endeavour landed on September 20, 1992. Jemison later left NASA to start her own company and to lead education projects, including the 100 Year Starship initiative, which studies the science and technology humans would need to travel to another star.
