User:Megalibrarygirl/Timeline of women in space exploration
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This is a timeline of women in space and space exploration which describes many of the firsts and achievements of women as astronauts, astronomers, engineers, scientists and other jobs relating to space exploration and space travel. Observational space exploration often takes place through telescopes by astronomers and astrophysicists, and in the 20th century, technology has allowed people to physically explore space either in person, or by robotic proxy. This list encompasses women's achievements from around the world in both direct and supporting roles in space exploration.
2nd century, BCE[edit]
c. 200 BCE[edit]
- Aglaonike, an ancient Greek astronomer predicted lunar eclipses.[1]
16th century[edit]
1556[edit]
- Sophia Brahe, the sister of Tycho Brahe, is born. She becomes an astronomer, engineer, alchemist and physician who assisted her brother.[2]
18th century[edit]
1781[edit]
- Caroline Herschel becomes the first woman to be paid for her scientific work in England. She was an astronomer who discovered nebulae, star clusters and was the first woman to discover a comet.[3]
19th century[edit]
1827[edit]
- Mary Somerville translates and explains the mathematics of Pierre-Simon Laplace's Mécanique Céleste, (The Mechanism of the Heavens), making the work, about the movement of the planets, accessible to England's mathematicians.[4]
1865[edit]
- Maria Mitchell is the first American professional astronomer when she is hired as Professor of Astronomy at Vassar College.[5]
1877[edit]
- Edward Pickering begins to hire all women to do astronomical calculations at Harvard. His team, helped publish over 10,000 different star classifications.[6]
1888[edit]
- Williamina Fleming discovers the Horsehead Nebula.[7]
20th century[edit]
1901[edit]
- Annie Jump Cannon publishes a catalog of stars using her own version of Fleming's scheme. Her version classified stars by temperature.[8]
1922[edit]
- Pearl I. Young is the first woman employed in a technical capacity for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), where she worked as a physicist and technical editor.[9]
1935[edit]
- Virginia Tucker is hired as a member of the first Computing Pool for NACA.[10] The Computer Pools processed test data for engineers.[11]
1953[edit]
- Katherine Johnson is hired at NACA, where she processed data from wind-tunnel tests and later calculated critical data for the Apollo Moon landing and Space Shuttle program.[12]
1958[edit]
- Susan Finley, the longest serving woman in NASA is hired by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Finley will design software for the Deep Space Network and work on many other projects, like JUNO.[13]
1959[edit]
- Marjorie Rhodes Townsend joins NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center where in the next decade she becomes the first woman to be a spacecraft project manager.[14]
1963[edit]
- June 16: Valentina Tereshkova is the first woman in space.[15]
1983[edit]
- June 18: Sally Ride becomes the first United States woman in space.[15]
1984[edit]
- July 25: Svetlana Savitskaya is the first woman to participate in an Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA).[15]
- October 11: Kathy Sullivan becomes the first United States woman to participate in an EVA.[15]
1985[edit]
- Women in Aerospace (WIA) was established in order to expand women's opportunities in and their presence in the aerospace community.[16]
1986[edit]
- First school teacher, Christa McAuliffe was killed in the Challenger explosion.[17]
1991[edit]
- Helen Sharman is the first person from Great Britain in space.[17]
1992[edit]
- January 22: Roberta Bondar becomes the first Canadian woman in space.[18]
- September 12: Mae Jemison is the first African American woman in space.[19]
1993[edit]
- Ellen Ochoa is the first Hispanic woman to go into space.[17]
1996[edit]
- Claudie André-Deshays is the first French woman in space.[17]
1999[edit]
- July 23: Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to command the Space Shuttle.[15]
21st century[edit]
2008[edit]
- Peggy Whitson is the first woman to command the International Space Station (ISS).[15]
2010[edit]
- The first Women in Aerospace Foundation Scholarship is given out to NASA intern, Whitney Lohmeyer.[20]
2012[edit]
- Ellen Ochoa becomes the Director of Johnson Space Center.[21]
2015[edit]
- October: Russia begins an experiment to test interactions of an all-female crew for a simulated Moon mission.[22]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ "Aglaonike". 4000 Years of Women in Science. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
- ^ "Brahe, Sophia". 4000 Years of Women in Science. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
- ^ Zielinski, Sarah (19 September 2011). "Ten Historic Female Scientists You Should Know: Caroline Herschel (1750-1848)". Smithsonian.com. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
- ^ "Mary Fairfax Greig Somerville". School of Mathematics and Statistics. University of St Andrews. November 1999. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
- ^ "About Maria Mitchell". Maria Mitchell Association. Nantucket's Science Center. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
- ^ McDermott, Maeve (28 April 2014). "'Pickering's Harem' – The Untold Story Of The Women Who Mapped Our Galaxy". National Geographic. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
- ^ Cannon, Annie J. (June 1911). "WILLIAMINA PATON FLEMING". Science. 33 (861) (published June 30, 1911): 987–988. Bibcode:1911Sci....33..987C. doi:10.1126/science.33.861.987. PMID 17799863.
- ^ "Annie Jump Cannon". Encyclopedia Britannica. 11 December 2014. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
- ^ James Hansen. 1987. Engineer in Charge: A History of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, 1917-1958. Chapter 7. NASA History Series.
- ^ "Virginia Tucker" (PDF). NASA. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
- ^ "Human Computers". NASA. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
- ^ "Katherine Johnson: The Girl Who Loved to Count". NASA. 24 November 2015. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
- ^ Holt, Natalia (5 July 2016). "The Woman Who Helped Us Hear Juno". Popular Science. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
- ^ McDonough, Megan (9 May 2015). "Marjorie Townsend, 85; NASA Engineer". Boston Globe. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f "Women in Space". NASA History Program Office. NASA. May 2015. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
- ^ "About Women in Aerospace". WIA. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
- ^ a b c d "Man-In-Space Firsts: Many Peoples in Space". Space Today Online. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
- ^ "Biography of Roberta Bondar". Canadian Space Agency. Retrieved 2016-09-20.
- ^ Jemison, Mae C. (2 February 2003). "EXECUTIVE LIFE: THE BOSS; 'What Was Space Like?'". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
- ^ "Student Features". NASA. 9 February 2011. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
- ^ "Ochoa Named Johnson Space Center Director; Coats To Retire". NASA. 16 November 2012. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
- ^ "All-female Russian crew starts Moon mission test". Phys Org. 28 October 2015. Retrieved 20 December 2016.
External links[edit]