The stellar women who revolutionized space travel
Katherine Johnson
Johnson, who was one of NASA's indispensable "human computers" before the time of digital computing, manually calculated the orbits and trajectories for numerous historic NASA missions, including Alan Shepard's historic flight as the first American in space.
Svetlana Savitskaya
On Savitskaya's second visit to space, in 1984, she became the first woman in history to spacewalk and spent 3.5 hours outside of the Salyut 7 space station.
Judith Resnik
In 1984, Resnik served as mission specialist aboard the Discovery shuttle. While her first mission was a success, Resnik died tragically along with her six other crew members in the 1986 Challenger shuttle disaster, during which the shuttle broke into pieces only 73 seconds into its flight.
Sources: (Sky at Night Magazine) (Interesting Engineering) (Britannica)
