Judith Resnik

Judith Resnik
Resnik in September 1978
Born	(1949-04-05)April 5, 1949 Akron, Ohio, U.S.
Died	January 28, 1986(1986-01-28) (aged 36) Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S.
Resting place	Arlington National Cemetery
Alma mater	Carnegie Mellon University (BS) University of Maryland (PhD)
Occupation	Engineer
Awards	Congressional Space Medal of Honor NASA Space Flight Medal
Space career
NASA astronaut
Time in space	6d 00h 56m
Selection	1978 NASA Group
Missions	STS-41-D, STS-51-L (disaster)
Mission insignia

Judith Arlene Resnik (April 5, 1949 – January 28, 1986) was an American electrical engineer, software engineer, biomedical engineer, pilot and NASA astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger during the launch of mission STS-51-L. Resnik was the fourth woman, the second American woman, and the first Jewish woman of any nationality to fly in space, logging 145 hours in orbit. Her first space flight was the STS-41-D in August and September 1984, when her duties included operating the Space Shuttle's robotic arm.

Recognized while still a child for her "intellectual brilliance", Resnik was accepted at Carnegie Mellon University after being one of only sixteen women in the history of the United States to have attained a perfect score on the SAT exam at the time. She went on to graduate with a degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon before attaining a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland. Resnik went on to work for RCA as an engineer on Navy missile and radar projects, was a senior systems engineer for Xerox Corporation and published research on special-purpose integrated circuitry before she was recruited by NASA to the astronaut program as a mission specialist at age 28. While training on the astronaut program, she developed software and operating procedures for NASA missions. She was also a pilot and made research contributions to biomedical engineering as a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health.

Early life

Judith Arlene Resnik was born in Akron, Ohio on April 5, 1949, the daughter of Marvin Resnik, an optometrist, and his wife Sarah née Polensky, a legal secretary. Her parents were Jewish immigrants originally from Ukraine. She had a brother, Charles, who was four years younger. Her father was fluent in eight languages and served in the Army during World War II in military intelligence and aerial reconnaissance in the Pacific Theater and the Occupation of Japan. She grew up in an observant Jewish home, studying at Hebrew school at Beth El Synagogue in Akron and celebrating her Bat Mitzvah. Her parents acrimoniously divorced while she was a teenager, and custody was given to given to her mother, as was the custom in the United States. When she was 17, she prepared and filed a court case so that her custody could be switched from her mother to her father, with whom she was particularly close. She tore up letters from her mother unopened.

Resnik was noticed for "intellectual brilliance" while still in kindergarten and entered elementary school a year early. At Firestone High School, she was an outstanding student, excelling in mathematics, languages and classical piano. Playing classical piano with "more than technical mastery", she planned on becoming a professional concert pianist. When questioned about her intensity at the piano, she replied, "I never play anything softly". Before college, she attained a perfect score on her SAT exam, the only woman in the country to do so that year and one of only 16 women at that time to have done so. She graduated from Firestone in 1966 as valedictorian and runner-up homecoming queen.

At age 17, Resnik entered Carnegie Institute of Technology and ultimately was one of three female students in electrical engineering. In her second year she developed a passion for electrical engineering, discovering her interest in "practical aspects of science" after attending lectures with her boyfriend and future husband, Michael Oldak, who was on the engineering course. Oldak said, "She was a math whiz, but at some point math lost the numbers and she wanted something more tangible so she switched her collegiate major to electrical engineering". She earned a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University (as it now was) in 1970. She became a member of Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu honor societies.

On July 14, 1970, Resnik married Oldak. Her mother attended the wedding; two sets of invitations were sent out, one describing her as her father's daughter, and the other as her mother's. She was a gourmet cook and a navigator in sports car rallies, in which she took part many times with Oldak in his Triumph TR6 when they were students. Upon graduation from Carnegie Mellon, Resnik worked at RCA as a design engineer in missile and radar projects and won the Graduate Study Program Award. She performed circuit design for the missile and surface radar division. While at RCA, she worked for the Navy building custom integrated circuitry for the phased-array radar control systems and developed electronics and software for NASA's sounding rocket and telemetry systems programs. An academic paper she wrote on special purpose integrated circuitry caught the attention of NASA during this time. Resnik and Oldak divorced in 1975 but remained on good terms.

Resnik onboard the Space Shuttle Discovery during STS-41-D in 1984.

While working on her doctorate, Resnik also worked as a research fellow of biomedical engineering at the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the National Institutes of Health. As a biomedical engineer, Resnik researched the physiology of visual systems. An academic article she published in 1978 concerned the biomedical engineering of optometry ("A novel rapid scanning microspectrophotometer and its use in measuring rhodopsin photoproduct pathways and kinetics in frog retinas"). She was a senior systems engineer for Xerox Corporation in product development. In 1977 she earned her Ph.D. in electrical engineering with honors at the University of Maryland, writing her dissertation on "Bleaching kinetics of visual pigments". Her research involved the effects of electrical currents on the retina.

NASA Astronaut

After her divorce, Resnik reconnected with Len Nahmi, a commercial airline pilot whom she had known in Akron. When he heard that NASA was recruiting women to become astronauts, he thought of Resnik, and encouraged her to apply. He arranged for her to meet with Michael Collins, a former astronaut who had flown to the Moon on Apollo 11, and convinced her to obtain a private pilot's licence in order to bolster her credentials. Resnik qualified as a pilot in 1977, while completing her Ph.D., having achieved near perfect scores in her flying exams (two 100s and a 98). Her mentor and advisor, Professor Angel G. Jordan, then Dean of Carnegie Mellon College of Engineering and later provost of Carnegie Mellon, encouraged Resnik to apply for the program. Jordan later regretted doing so. "She was an amazing person... I pushed her to excel, and I live with that memory every day."

In January 1978, Resnik was recruited at age 28 into the NASA Astronaut Corps with NASA Astronaut Group 8, one of six women selected out of over 8,000 male and female applicants. On joining NASA's astronaut program as a mission specialist, Resnik trained intensely and with great determination, focusing particularly on her physical fitness. She was deeply disappointed when she didn't become the first American woman in space. She piloted the Northrop T-38 Talon. Astronaut Jerome Apt described her as "an excellent pilot and a superb operator in space".

During training, it was assumed that either Resnik or Sally Ride would become the first woman in space, as they were the only female trainees receiving "the sorts of technical assignments which really prepared them for flight", such as capsule communicator (CapCom) duties. Resnik worked for NASA on research into the principle of orbital systems, flight software and the development of systems of manual control of spacecraft. She developed the software and operating procedures for the Remote Manipulation System for NASA. She developed the deployment systems for the tethered satellite systems and worked on orbiter development, writing software for NASA to use on its missions.

Resnik on the middeck of Space Shuttle Discovery, with an "I love Tom Selleck" sticker on her locker.

Resnik's flight suit on display at the Johnson Space Center

Resnik's first space flight was on the STS-41-D, the maiden voyage of the Space Shuttle Discovery from August to September 1984. She was the second American woman in space, after Sally Ride, and fourth overall. She was also the first American Jewish astronaut to go into space, the first Jewish woman and at the time only the second Jew to go to space (after Boris Volynov of the Soviet Union). Her duties included operating the Space Shuttle's robotic arm, which she helped create and on which she was an expert. She deployed and conducted experiments on a solar array wing as a potential future way of generating additional electrical power during space missions. After performing numerous dynamic tests, Resnik concluded that the experiment was very well-behaved and matched ground simulations of the array. She advocated the benefits of the solar array technology, particularly for future use in powering space stations.

During the mission, Resnik held a written sign saying "Hi Dad" to the cameras, and in a live televised broadcast told President Ronald Reagan, "The Earth looks great". When Reagan asked her if the flight was all she hoped it would be, she replied, "It certainly is and I couldn't have picked a better crew to fly with." Henry Hartsfield described Resnik as the "astronaut's astronaut" after the mission, while Mike Mullane wrote, "I was also happy to be crewed with Judy... She was smart, hardworking, and dependable, all the things you would want in a fellow crewmember."

Challenger disaster

Main article: Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

Resnik was a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger for flight STS-51-L. Her last recorded words aboard Challenger regarded scanning for "LVLH" (low-vertical/low-horizontal), reminding the cockpit crew of a switch configuration change.

Following the Challenger disaster, examination of the recovered vehicle cockpit revealed that three of the crew members' Personal Egress Air Packs were activated for pilot Michael J. Smith and two other crew members. The location of Smith's activation switch on the back of his seat means either Resnik or Onizuka likely activated it for him. Mike Mullane writes:

"Mike Smith's PEAP had been turned on by Judy or El, I wondered if I would have had the presence of mind to do the same thing had I been in Challenger's cockpit. Or would I have been locked in a catatonic paralysis of fear? There had been nothing in our training concerning the activation of a PEAP in the event of an in-flight emergency. The fact that Judy or El had done so for Mike Smith made them heroic in my mind. They had been able to block out the terrifying sights and sounds and motions of Challenger's destruction and had reached for that switch. It was the type of thing a true astronaut would do—maintain their cool in the direst of circumstances."

This is the only evidence that shows Onizuka and Resnik were alive after the cockpit separated from the vehicle. If the cabin had lost pressure, the air packs alone would not have sustained the crew during the two-minute descent. Resnik's remains were recovered from the crashed vehicle cockpit by Navy divers of the USS Preserver. They were cremated and buried in Arlington National Cemetery on May 20, 1986, comingled with those of her the six Challenger crewmates .

Legacy

Amy Resnik, wife of Chuck Resnik, touches the Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial after a wreath laying ceremony as part of NASA’s Day of Remembrance

Resnik was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. She was also awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal for her first flight. Landmarks and buildings being named for her include a dormitory at her alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University; Judith A. Resnik Elementary School in Gaithersburg, Maryland; Judith A. Resnik Community Learning Center in her hometown of Akron; and Judith A. Resnik Middle School, established in 2016, in San Antonio, Texas. A crater on the Moon was named after her, as was one on Venus, where all features are named after women. An asteroid, 3356 Resnik, was also named after her.

A memorial to Resnik and the rest of the crew of Challenger was dedicated in Seabrook, Texas, where Resnik lived while stationed at the Johnson Space Center. The IEEE Judith A. Resnik Award was established in 1986 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and is presented annually to an individual or team in recognition of outstanding contributions to space engineering in areas of relevance to the IEEE. The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) awards the Resnik Challenger Medal annually to a woman who has changed the space industry, has personally contributed innovative technology verified by flight experience and will be recognized through future decades as having created milestones in the development of space as a resource for all humankind. The Challenger Center was established in 1986 by the families of the Challenger crew, including Resnik's brother, Charles, in honor of the crew members. The goal of the center is to increase Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics interest in children.

In popular culture

Resnik was portrayed by Julie Fulton in the 1990 made for TV movie Challenger.

See also

• List of female astronauts
• List of Jewish astronauts

References

• Bernstein, Joanne E; Blue, Rose; Gerber, Alan Jay (1990). Judith Resnik, Challenger astronaut. New York: Lodestar Books. ISBN 978-0-525-67305-7. OCLC 20594024.
• Cavallaro, Umberto (2017). Women Spacefarers: Sixty Different Paths to Space. Chichester: Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-34047-0. OCLC 1066696221.
• Evans, Ben (2012). Tragedy and Triumph in Orbit: The Eighties and Early Nineties. New York: Springer. ISBN 978-1-4614-3429-0. OCLC 816202257.
• Gibson, Karen (2014). Women in Space: 23 Stories of First Flights, Scientific Missions, and Gravity-Breaking Adventures. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-64160-313-3. OCLC 1111936104.
• Mullane, Mike (2006). Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut. New York: Scribner. ISBN 978-0-7432-7682-5. OCLC 237049278.
• Shayler, David; Moule, Ian A. (2006). Women in Space – Following Valentina. New York: Springer. ISBN 978-1-85233-744-5. OCLC 218506039.
• Tietjen, Jill S. (2017). Engineering Women: Re-visioning Women's Scientific Achievements and Impacts. Cham: Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-40800-2. OCLC 1105279881.
• Wayne, Tiffany K. (2011). American Women of Science Since 1900. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara, California. ISBN 978-1-59884-158-9. OCLC 841850385.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

External links

• Challenger's Enduring Mission
• Autograph Letter of Astronaut Judy Resnik Shapell Manuscript Foundation