LOVE|EDUCATION

I Love Black Women To The International Space Station, Moon And Back

Jessica Watkins will be on the ISS, and quite possibly the moon, soon making me swoon

I don’t write about it often, but I am a lover of cosmology — the study of how the universe was created and how it works.

It’s a major reason that I somehow crossed over from being a student to being friends with my physics professor who love cosmology even more than I do.

Will save that incredible tale for another day…today’s story is all about shining light on another remarkable Black woman —

Jessica Watkins.

“I think it’s important to recognize this as a milestone for our agency and for our country, as well, to know that we are building on the foundation that was laid by the Black woman astronauts who’ve come before me,” Watkins told NPR’s Morning Edition earlier this year about flying with Crew-4. “I’m definitely honored to be a small part of that legacy, but ultimately be an equal member of the crew.”

Making her first flight to space with Crew-4, Watkins is the fifth Black woman in history to fly to space, following NASA astronauts Mae Jemison, Stephanie Wilson, Joan Higginbotham and private astronaut Sian Proctor.

There remain two Black women in NASA’s astronaut corps who have not yet flown to space: Yvonne Cagle and Jeanette Epps. Epps is currently scheduled to fly to space with Boeing’s Starliner capsule, the company’s parallel to SpaceX’s Dragon.

Following her historic mission aboard the space station, Watkins’ next stop could be the moon.

NASA’s Artemis program aims to return humans to the moon’s surface for the first time since the Apollo program’s last lunar landing in 1972. The first mission of this program, an uncrewed test flight called Artemis 1, is set to launch this year.

The first crew left for the International Space Station a little more than 21 years ago.

First Crew to Reside on Station November 2, 2000

NASA Astronaut Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev become the first crew to reside onboard the station. Expedition 1 spent four months onboard completing tasks necessary to bring the ISS “to life” and began what is now more than 20 years of continuous human presence in space.

I have calculated and anticipated some of its passes in the sky over my head. It is visible, even during the day at times, with the naked eye but the best time is at dusk or at night.

You just need to know where to look.

It took 20 years for the first Black man to be part of the ISS crew.

Glover isn’t the first African American astronaut to spend time on the station. A handful of others visited the orbiting lab during space shuttle missions, but those were brief jaunts lasting just a few weeks.

Glover will spend more than six months in orbit, serving as a crewmember on the space station’s Expedition 64 and Expedition 65 missions.

As The New York Times noted, more than 300 NASA astronauts have reached space to date, but Glover is just the 15th African American member of this exclusive club. (Crew-1 is the first spaceflight for Glover, a U.S. Navy commander and pilot who was selected as an astronaut in 2013.)

In the face of ongoing systemic, political and other various forms of discrimination against my Black brothers and sisters, I feel a bit of reprieve and satisfaction from this milestone.

There is no holding us back.

Here’s an excerpt from one of my favorite writers here on Medium Erica J who recently wrote a story that I love in praise of Black women:

The New Black Woman is no longer influenced by Decepticons telling her that after all of her woes and hard work, she still needs to do MORE! MORE! MORE! The New Black Woman is no longer gaslit by this. She understands that everyone’s Destiny is charted by their own reaping and sowing. She has a pure, kind heart but is astute and fierce as a lioness when need be.

She understands that everyone will not like her — and that is quite alright. She understands that even when she is nice and supportive, people will continue to say that she isn’t — she is okay with this too.

The New Black Woman is a force to be reckoned with because she can’t be understood. Her slow awakening is actually a knife to the gut of the butt hurt who wants her to be loud, ghetto, and broken in spirit. It is painful for the devil to watch a Queen rise, because she is no longer affected by what mortals think.

They are mortal and bleed red.

Just like her.

So, rise New Black Woman. Take your place in the world as someone washed anew. A diamond that hid in the rough neck of the earth, and now shaped by all your pain.

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