These are the only five Black women to have ever traveled into space

Joan Higginbotham

Traveled into space on December 9, 2006

Joan Elizabeth Higginbotham is an electrical engineer and former NASA astronaut born on August 3, 1964, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. She attended Whitney Young Magnet High School and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1987 from the Southern Illinois University Carbondale, a Master in Management Science in 1992, and a Master in space systems in 1996, both from the Florida Institute of Technology.

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She began her NASA career in 1987 at the Kennedy Space Center. In April 1996, she was selected as an astronaut candidate and was part of the STS-116 Space Shuttle Discovery Mission to the ISS that kicked off on December 9, 2006. She spent 12 days, 20 hours, 45 minutes, and 16 seconds in space. Higginbotham is the third African-American woman to go into space. She resigned from NASA while she was scheduled for a second mission to Space (STS-126).