Mae Jemison Space Scientist Part1

Space Shuttle Endeavour Selection 4 Mae Jemison, Space Scientist By Gail Sakurai 3... 2... 1... Lift off! The Space Shuttle Endeavour thundered into the morning sky above Kennedy Space Center. Higher and higher it soared over the Atlantic Ocean. A few minutes later, Endeavour was in orbit around Earth. Aboard the spacecraft, astronaut Mae Jemison could feel her heart pounding with excitement. A wide, happy grin split her face. She had just made history. She was the first African-American woman in space. The date was September 12, 1992. But Mae wasn't thinking about dates in history books. Her thoughts were of the wonder and adventure of space travel. I'm closer to the stars, somewhere I've always dreamed to be, Mae said during a live television broadcast from space. Mae's dream didn't come true overnight. It happened only after many long years of hard work, training, and preparation. Her success story began nearly 36 years earlier in a small town in Alabama. Mae Carol Jemison was born on October 17, 1956, in Decatur, Alabama. While she was still a toddler, Mae and her family moved to the big city of Chicago, Illinois. Mae considers Chicago her hometown because she grew up there. Mae was the youngest child in her family. She had an older brother, Charles, and an older sister, Ada. Her parents, Charlie and Dorothy Jemison, were helpful and supportive of all of Mae's interests. They put up with all kinds of stuff, like science projects, dance classes, and art lessons, Mae said. They encouraged me to do it, and they would find the money, time, and energy to help me be involved. Other adults were not as encouraging as Mae's parents. When Mae told her kindergarten teacher that she wanted to be a scientist, the teacher said, Don't you mean a nurse? In those days, very few African Americans or women were scientists. Many people, like Mae's teacher, couldn't imagine a little black girl growing up to become a scientist. But Mae refused to let other people's limited imaginations stop her from following her dreams. Mae loved to work on school science projects. She spent many hours at the public library reading books about science and space. On summer nights, she liked to lie outside, look up at the stars, and dream of traveling in space. Mae was fascinated by the real-life space flights and moon landings that she watched on television. Mae Jemison knew that she wanted to be an astronaut. Although all the astronauts at that time were white and male, Mae wasn't discouraged. Science and space were not young Mae's only interests. She also loved to dance. Mae started taking lessons in jazz and African dance at the age of nine. By the time she was in high school, Mae was an accomplished dancer, and she frequently performed on stage. She was also skilled at choreography, the art of creating a dance. In 1973, Mae graduated from Chicago's Morgan Park High School, where she was an honor roll student and excelled in science and math. That fall, Mae entered Stanford University in California. At Stanford, she specialized in African and Afro-American studies and chemical engineering. Mae continued her dancing and choreography. She also became involved with student organizations, and she was elected president of the Black Student Union. After receiving her Bachelor of Science degree from Stanford, Mae enrolled at Cornell University Medical College in New York. She had decided to become a doctor. Medical school was demanding, but Mae still found time to participate in student organizations. She served as president of both the Cornell Medical Student Executive Council and the Cornell chapter of the National Student Medical Association. Mae traveled to several countries as part of her medical training. She studied medicine in Cuba. She helped provide basic medical care for people in rural Kenya and at a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand. Mae received her Doctor of Medicine degree from Cornell University in 1981. Like all new doctors, she served an internship, a period of practicing under experienced doctors. Mae completed her internship at the Los Angeles County University of Southern California Medical Center. Then, she started working as a doctor in Los Angeles. Although she had settled into a career as a doctor, Mae wasn't finished traveling yet. She remembered the trips she had taken during medical school, and she still wanted to help people in other parts of the world. Mae decided to join the Peace Corps, an organization of volunteers who work to improve conditions in developing nations. Mae spent more than two years in West Africa. She was the area Peace Corps medical officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia. She was in charge of health care for all Peace Corps volunteers and U.S. Embassy employees in those two countries. It was an important responsibility for someone who was only 26 years old. I learned a lot from that experience, Mae said. I was one of the youngest doctors over there, and I had to learn to deal with how people reacted to my age while asserting myself as a physician. When her tour of duty in the Peace Corps was over, Mae returned to Los Angeles and resumed her medical practice. She also started taking advanced engineering classes. Mae had not forgotten her dream of traveling in space. Now that she had the necessary education and experience, Mae decided to try and become an astronaut. She applied to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, which is responsible for U.S. space exploration. After undergoing background checks, physical exams, medical tests, and interviews, Dr. Mae Jemison was accepted into the astronaut program in June 1987. She was one of only 15 people chosen from nearly 2,000 qualified applicants. Mae didn't let success go to her head. I'm very aware of the fact that I'm not the first African-American woman who had the skills, the talent, the desire to be an astronaut, she said. I happened to be the first one that NASA selected. Mae moved to Houston, Texas, where she began a year of intensive training at NASA's Johnson Space Center. She studied space shuttle equipment and operations. To learn how to handle emergencies and deal with difficult situations, Mae practiced wilderness and water survival skills. Survival training also helps teach cooperation and teamwork. These are important abilities for astronauts who must live and work together for long periods in a cramped space shuttle. Mae took lessons on how to move her body and operate tools in a weightless environment. On Earth, the force of gravity keeps us from floating off the ground. But in space, there is less gravity, so people and objects drift about. Since there is no up or down in space, astronauts don't need to lie down to sleep. They can sleep in any position. To keep from drifting while asleep, they zip themselves into special sleeping bags attached to the shuttle's walls. During training, Mae got a preview of weightlessness. She flew in a special training jet that simulates zero gravity. The jet climbs nearly straight up, then loops into a steep dive. This is similar to the loop-the-loops on many roller coasters. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology