7 Chapter 7: Mae’s Journey to Space

Finally on September 12, 1992, Mae Jemison boarded the Space Shuttle Endeavour at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida along with her crew members. The space crew included mission commander Robert L Gibson, Mark Lee as the pay-load specialist and Jan Davis was a mission specialist. Mark and Jan were the first married couple in space. Also Mamoru Mohri from NASDA (National Space Development Agency) from Japan was the first person from his country on the shuttle. Their mission was called STS-47 and they completed scientific experiments in space and learn more about how the human body works in zero gravity.

Mae’s role on board was the mission specialist. For eight days, Mae and her fellow astronauts floated in space, working on their experiments. In total, they conducted forty-three experiments. They wanted to learn more about weightlessness and the loss of calcium. Calcium is an important vitamin in bones. The loss of calcium in bones is called osteoporosis. Everyone loses calcium, but women lose calcium faster the longer they stay in space. Mae also completed experiments on motion sickness and how to prevent it in space. She studied how biofeedback can help a person control motion sickness without the use of medication. A special experiment Mae conduct was to study if tadpoles developed into frogs in a microgravity environment. Her results were that the tadpoles were “right on track” and developed into healthy frogs.

The space shuttle circled the earth 127 times. Common questions astronauts get asked are what did you eat in space? and how do you stay clean? In the past, crew members made their meals by adding water to meal containers and kneading it. Mae’s mission had special serving trays and an oven on board to warm up food. The typical meals the crew ate on board were orange juice, scrambled eggs, sausage and coffee for breakfast. For lunch, they had soup, sandwiches and cookies. For dinner, they ate shrimp cocktail, broccoli, strawberries and cocoa. Sanitation or staying clean in space is very important because infection can spread fast. There are no washing machines on board, so crew members changed their clothes every two days and sealed dirty clothes in a bag. There are also no showers in space. Crew members had to take sponge baths. The crew used a waste collection system for the bathroom similar to how it is used on earth. Male astronauts had to be careful when shaving so their hair whiskers did not get into equipment.

From space, Mae could see our beautiful blue planet. She took pictures of the Earth to study its environment and changes over time. Mae and her team worked hard every day, making important discoveries. On September 20, 1992, the Space Shuttle Endeavour safely landed back on Earth at the Kennedy Space Center. Mae’s journey to space had come to an end, but her impact on the world had just begun. Mae Jemison’s flight into space was a historic event, and she would forever be remembered as the first African American woman astronaut who went to space!