Happy Nice Mall

two decades later The International Space Station has become humanity’s longevity home in orbitNASA astronaut Jessica Watkins is set to become the first Black woman to join her team for a long-term mission.

John, a geologist who grew up in Lafayette, Col., NASA announced on Tuesday. He announced that Watkins will serve as a mission specialist to the space station on SpaceX’s next astronaut flight, known as Crew-4. It will join two other NASA astronauts and an Italian astronaut for a six-month mission at the orbital lab, scheduled to begin in April.

In an interview, Dr. Watkins said she hopes going to the space station will set an example for children of color, “especially young girls of color, so they can see an example of the ways they can participate and succeed.”

“For me that was really important and if I can contribute to it in some way, it’s definitely worth it,” he added.

Of the 249 people who have boarded the space station since its founding in 2000, only seven were Black. Victor Glover A Navy commander and test pilot who joined NASA’s astronaut corps in 2013 became the first Black crew member to serve on a regular long-term mission at the station; His job started last year. The six Black astronauts who visited the space station before Mr. Glover were part of the space shuttle crews that remained for about 12 days.

In 1983, Guion S. Bluford became the first Black American in space, and in 1992, Mae Jemison became the first Black woman to do so. in 1961, Ed Dwight, an Air Force pilot, was NASA’s first Black astronaut intern, but was not selected. In September, Sian Proctor, member of SpaceX’s Inspiration4 The amateur astronaut mission to orbit but not the space station became the first black woman to serve as a spacecraft pilot.

Jeanette Epps, a NASA astronaut, was originally identified as the first Black woman to live and work on the space station in 2018. replaced by another astronaut For reasons NASA hasn’t explained. It is scheduled for a six-month mission as part of the first operational crew of astronauts to fly. Boeing’s Starliner capsule. However, the development of this capsule years behind schedule. A faulty valve set, discovered this summer before starting an uncrewed test of the Starliner’s propulsion system, led to Dr. He delayed Epps’ mission until late 2022 at the earliest.

Dr. Watkins completed his undergraduate studies at Stanford University and earned his doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles. Studying landslides on Mars and the World. He has worked in NASA’s science labs on projects including: Mars Curiosity rover mission, and joined the astronaut corps in 2017. Becoming an astronaut was “something I’ve dreamed of for a very long time, since I was very young, but it certainly wasn’t something I thought would happen,” he said.

Last year, he was among 18 astronauts NASA selected to represent the agency’s Artemis program, a multibillion-dollar effort to return humans, including the first woman and the first person of color, to the surface of the moon by 2025. All of the astronauts NASA sent to the moon during the Apollo program were white men. In recent years, the agency has sought to make its astronaut programs more representative of the American population.

“Exploring space beyond LEO is a huge effort and we have to engage all segments of our society,” said Ken Bowersox, a senior official in NASA’s space operations wing and a former astronaut, at an event last week. the agency’s goals beyond low Earth orbit.

Dr. Watkins had been training for space travel for months before his crew mission. he completed spacewalk simulations He learned the ins and outs of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and the space station, a football-field-sized science lab 260 miles above Earth.

Regarding being the first Black woman to hold a long-term tenure, she said: “It’s certainly not lost on me that we’ve reached this moment in history.” “If we can’t focus on the job and perform well, this moment isn’t worth that much.”