Mae Jemison

SHOOTING STAR
Former Astronaut Mae Jemison Brings Her Message Down to Earth

By Jesse Katz
Illustration by Barry Blitt

It would’ve been so charmingly naive, this tale Mae Jemison tells of her early celestial dreams, if it weren’t also a parable for the spirit that helped make them come true. As fantastical as it sounds, her pioneering journey aboard the space shuttle Endeavour was fueled by a childhood passion for “Star Trek,” its made-for-TV adventures stimulating a hunger for real ones in her mind.

Who cared that, in reality, every U.S. astronaut was white and male at the time? She looked no further than the USS Enterprise. After all, right there on the screen, week in and week out, who could miss Lt. Uhura, the starship’s stylish, self-assured communications officer ­ and a black woman, no less. For little Mae, a child of the ’60s, the make-believe image was more potent than any dispiriting fact of real life.

“Images show us possibilities,” the Stanford graduate says. “A lot of times, fantasy is what gets us through to reality.”

A quarter of a century after Lt. Uhura boldly went where no African American had gone before, her protegee returned the favor. Before blasting into orbit aboard the Endeavour in 1992, Jemison, the first woman of color in space, called actress Nichelle Nichols to thank her for the inspiration. And then she made a promise:

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