Women of the Mercury-to-Shuttle era

Mercury first, and who was in it

Project Mercury flew six piloted missions between 1961 and 1963. The seven astronauts selected in 1959 were all men. No American woman flew Mercury, or Gemini, or Apollo. The first woman in space was Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union, on Vostok 6 in June 1963. The American story starts later, with a different vehicle and a different selection. In 1978 NASA's astronaut group 8 included women for the first time. Sally Ride and Kathryn Sullivan were in that class. The vehicle they were hired to fly was the Space Shuttle.

The pictures in this group are NASA photographs, works of the federal government, in the public domain. Some are portraits. One is a flight-deck picture made during a mission. The caption should say which is which, because a blue-suit portrait and a picture from orbit are different kinds of evidence. Both are worth hanging. They answer different questions.

Ride on the flight deck, Sullivan outside

Sally Ride flew on STS-7 in June 1983, aboard Challenger, and became the first American woman in space. The photograph in the shop was made on that flight: Ride at work on the flight deck, frame s07-31-1603, mission hardware around her, the job visible. She flew again in 1984 on STS-41-G. The flight-deck picture is the one to lead with, because it shows the work rather than the announcement.

Kathryn Sullivan flew three shuttle missions. On STS-41-G, in October 1984, she became the first American woman to walk in space. Svetlana Savitskaya had made a Soviet spacewalk earlier that year. The American first is Sullivan's, and the shop's print is her NASA portrait, s84-37982, the blue suit and the official face. The spacewalk is the flight record. The portrait is what the agency made so the public would know the person who had the record. Hang the portrait with that sentence attached, and it tells the truth.

Jemison, Ochoa, and a commander

Mae Jemison flew as a mission specialist on STS-47 in September 1992, aboard Endeavour, a Spacelab mission shared with Japan. She was the first Black woman in space. NASA's portrait of her, S92-40463, is the picture in the shop. She had been selected in the 1987 astronaut class, a physician who decided the shuttle was the practice she wanted. The portrait is formal. The flight is the fact underneath it.

Ellen Ochoa flew four shuttle missions. STS-56, in April 1993 on Discovery, made her the first Hispanic woman in space. The shop's photograph is a later NASA portrait, jsc2014e037863, and the caption carries the 1993 flight because that is the milestone. Ochoa had been selected in 1990. She later became director of the Johnson Space Center, which is a second career sitting on top of the four flights. The print is the astronaut.

Eileen Collins was a pilot, which in the shuttle era was a different seat from mission specialist. Selected in 1990, she became the first woman to pilot a shuttle on STS-63 in February 1995, and the first woman to command one on STS-93 in July 1999, the flight that carried the Chandra X-ray Observatory. NASA photograph S99-00858 is her portrait around the time of that command. Five pictures, five firsts, and a clean line from a Mercury roster that had no women on it to a commander’s seat on a shuttle. Group 8 reported for shuttle training at the end of the 1970s. Columbia's first flight, STS-1, was April 1981, John Young and Robert Crippen. Ride's STS-7 came two years later. The sources are the NASA frame numbers. The order on a wall is the order of the flights: Ride, Sullivan, Jemison, Ochoa, Collins.