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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 22, 2017)
February 22, 2017 The Skanner BLACK HISTORY EDITION Page 7 Black History First Black Crew Member to Join International Space Station By Shantella Y. Sherman (AFRO/NNPA Member) T he National Aero- nautics and Space Ad m i n i s t ra t i o n (NASA) has selected astronaut Jeanette Epps to join the crew of the In- ternational Space Station in 2018. Epps will become the first Black crewmem- “ when she was first in- troduced to the idea that she could be an astro- naut. “It was about 1980, I was nine years old. My brother came home and he looked at my grades and my twin sis- ters’ grades and he said, ‘You know, you guys can probably become aero- space engineers or even that Sally Ride [the first American woman to fly in space] and a group of women were selected to become astronauts — the first time in history. So, he made that comment and I said, ‘Wow, that would be so cool.’” Epps will join veteran NASA astronaut Andrew Feustel at the Space Sta- NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps will be the first Black crewmember to live and work on the In- ternational Space Station for an extended pe- riod of time. (NASA) ber to represent the U.S. on the station. The journey will mark the first time Epps has traveled to orbit, allow- ing her to follow in the footsteps of the women who, she said, inspired her to become an astro- naut. While other Black as- tronauts have flown to the Space Station for brief stays during the outpost’s construction, Epps will be the first Black crewmember to live and work on the station for an extended period of time. Her jour- ney aboard the Soyuz spacecraft and stay at the station places her as the only American and fe- male among a crew made up of mostly Russians and men. “I’m a person just like they are. I do the same work as they do,” Epps told a group of STEM students at her Syracuse alma mater, Danforth Middle School. “If some- thing breaks, anyone of us will have to be able to go out the door. We have to be jacks of all trades. It’s not a job that’s like any other.” While working on her doctorate, Epps was a NASA graduate student Researchers Project fel- low, authoring several journal and conference articles about her re- search. After complet- ing her graduate stud- ies, Epps worked in a research lab for more than two years, co-au- thoring multiple patents, before being recruited by the Central Intelli- gence Agency (CIA). She was a CIA technical intel- ligence officer for about seven years before being selected as a member of the 2009 astronaut class. “Anything you don’t know is going to be hard at first,” Epps said in a video statement about the launch. “But if you stay the course, put the time and effort in, it will become seamless eventu- ally.” Epps, in the NASA video interview, shared astronauts,’” Epps said. “And this was at the time tion. On Feustel’s first long-duration mission, he served as a flight en- gineer on Expedition 55, and later as commander of Expedition 56. “Each space station crew brings something different to the table, and Drew and Jeanette both have a lot to offer,” said Chris Cassidy, chief of the Astronaut Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, in a statement. “The space station will benefit from having them on board.” The AFRO is a member publication of the Nation- al Newspaper Publishers Association. Learn more about becoming a mem- ber at www.nnpa.org. Astronaut Jeanette Epps