NASA / Johnson Space Center, photo S92-40463, official STS-47 portrait, 1 July 1992, downscaled from the original · NASA Johnson Space Center photograph S92-40463, 'Official portrait of STS-47 Mission Specialist Mae C. Jemison in LES' (NASA record date 1 July 1992; Commons 'Taken on 1 July 1992'), downloaded from the NASA Image and Video Library original (6204 x 7755 pixels, 5,122,051 bytes), the same size as the Wikimedia Commons file 'Mae Carol Jemison.jpg' (author NASA, tagged public domain as a work solely created by NASA; the Commons file's embedded metadata names Adobe Photoshop CS3, but this file was taken from NASA's own asset server, not from Commons). NASA's Media Usage Guidelines say NASA content is generally not subject to copyright in the United States and that third-party copyrighted material is marked with the holder's name; this record carries only a NASA credit, no third-party credit, and the mission patch visible on the suit is part of the official crew portrait. The guidelines also warn that commercial use of an astronaut's likeness must not imply NASA endorsement and that an identifiable person may have publicity rights; this record is for editorial identification of the subject and the lead should decide whether the product counts as commercial use (the same caveat already applies to other living astronauts in the roster). Downscaled once to 960 x 1200 (never upscaled). · Public Domain (NASA work)

astronaut · Contemporary

Mae Jemison

b. 1956

Known For

historicalscientificcultural

Wikidata

Not yet included in personality matching — the documented evidence doesn't yet cover enough of the personality model. Everything else on this page is fully available.

Trait Constellation

Key Achievements

On 12 September 1992 Jemison flew on Space Shuttle Endeavour's STS-47 mission as the Spacelab-J science mission specialist, a joint NASA-Japan flight of about eight days and 127 orbits that carried 44 life-science and materials-processing experiments; she was co-investigator on a bone cell research experiment. NASA's press kit identifies her as the first African American woman to fly in space.

She trained as both an engineer and a physician, with a chemical engineering degree from Stanford (1977) and a medical degree from Cornell (1981). From January 1983 to June 1985 she was Area Peace Corps Medical Officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia, managing health care for Peace Corps and embassy personnel, writing self-care manuals and taking part in hepatitis B vaccine, schistosomiasis and rabies research with the National Institutes of Health and the CDC.

She left NASA in March 1993 and later founded the technology consulting company the Jemison Group and an international science camp, The Earth We Share.

Moments That Reveal Them

Early in the Spacelab-J mission Jemison spent most of a Blue Team shift on the Frog Embryology Experiment. She moved fertilized eggs into the sealed workstation and watched them under a video microscope, and the experiment's principal investigator, Kenneth Souza, speaking from Marshall Space Flight Center's operations area, said he and his team agreed with her choice of the two best egg-donor frogs of the four aboard. When the workstation door stuck, she spoke with the experiment's payload manager, who approved a plan from Jemison and Jan Davis to free it, and it worked.

This is consistent with working a problem in step with ground investigators and a crewmate rather than alone, though the report records the outcome in a single sentence. Collaboration

In NASA's status reports for the first days of the mission (12 to 17 September 1992), Jemison appears in both of Spacelab-J's research areas. In materials science she ran the Gas Evaporation Facility, which vaporized metal filaments in glass bulbs, and the Liquid Drop Facility, levitating a drop of mineral oil with sound waves (a Japanese co-investigator thanked her for her hard work although the results were not completely successful). In life science she injected frogs to induce ovulation, fertilized and later fixed the eggs, and rotated chicken eggs each shift.

This is consistent with a background spanning engineering and medicine being put to work across the mission's two research areas, though the assignments were also set by the shift plan. Cross-Domain Range

Turning Points

Jemison, a physician, applied to NASA's astronaut program in 1985. When selection was paused after the Challenger accident in 1986 she reapplied, and in June 1987 she was chosen as one of 15 candidates from over 2,000 applicants. NASA's biography says she was working as a general practitioner and attending graduate engineering classes when she was selected.

This is consistent with someone who went after a new career path herself and tried again when the first attempt was overtaken by events, though the account of the application rests mainly on a museum biography. Proactive Agency