For the first time in history, a black woman will work on the International Space Station.

Freedom Dragon Capsulefrom SpaceX, is already in International Space Station (ISS). This is how it starts NASA Mission Crew-4, a project that has already broken two records since its inception. The first and longest trip of its kind in history, only 16 hours to reach the destination. The second is much more symbolic. And the fact is that one of the four crew members of the mission, Jessica Watkins, will become the first black woman to work on the ISS. Yes, in 2022

It should be noted that she is not the first black woman to go into space. While we don’t think many have left either, she only fifth. What makes it different from others is that it will not carry out the burden of its mission during space flight, but will work for a long period of time at space facilities. international space station. In particular, within the six months that your stay will last.

Fortunately, it seems that NASA has already reconsidered lack of diversity among its astronauts, so it announced that its two biggest manned missions in the near future, returning to the Moon and landing on Mars, will for the first time include at least woman and black man.

From the first black woman in space to the first to work on the International Space Station

When Katherine Johnson By joining the team of mathematicians and engineers who first calculated the trajectory of a man flying to the Moon, a black woman had very difficult access to science. Much less for a place as advanced as NASA. At first she was taken to the team calculators, a group of women who did calculations with computers today. To carry out all these operations, many people were required, so it was cheapest to hire black women.

But it took Katherine a lot of perseverance for them to take her seriously and let her go where only men go. And less bad. At that time, many thought that her feat would be the greatest that a black woman could accomplish in space race. But it wasn’t. Although the steps to advance were much slower than those of other women. And terribly slower than white people.

The first black woman to go into space was May Jemison. He did so in 1992, 31 years after Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. Jamison traveled through Ship Endeavor in time Mission STS47. For eight days, this engineer and doctor conducted experiments to assess the health of the crew in microgravity.

After that it was her turn Stephanie Wilson, who today is the longest-serving black woman in space. Just 42 days if you add all of his missions to the International Space Station. However, contrary to what Watkins would do, he did not serve the institution for a long season, but rather as a good engineerdevoted himself to intervening in some module repair and assembly maneuvers stations. His career still holds great promise; because, in fact, it will be part of Artemis programa, which will return people to the moon.

Similar to Wilson’s work was the work Joan Higginbotham, whose single mission in 2006 lasted a total of 12 days. And finally, the last black woman in space before Watkins Sian Proctorwho also recently made history by becoming the first black woman to pilot a spacecraft in the first private manned space flight.

The work of Jessica Watkins

Jessica Watkins geologist and has worked for NASA for many years. In fact, he was part of the team Curiosity roverwhich has been working on the surface of Mars since 2012.

On this new mission to the International Space Station, he will work alongside Kjell Lindgren and Robert Hinesalso from NASA, and Samantha Cristoforetti, from the European Space Agency. Together they will conduct more than 200 scientific and technical experiments. These will include studies on immune system aging, specific alternatives to organic material, and analysis of cardiorespiratory effects during and after prolonged microgravity exposure, according to NASA.

In short, the first black woman to work on the International Space Station will do it in style. The sad thing is that it happened so late; but since you can’t time travel in fix past mistakesLet’s hope this at least stops being the exception and finally becomes the norm in the space race.