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.”
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Astronaut Jeanette Epps
