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Feb. 13, 2006 In 1997, during a Jeopardy! contestant search down in Atlanta, I was challenged with providing the correct questions to 50 different answers. And although I don’t remember the exact answer I was given, I can clearly remember supplying the correct question: Who is Dr. Mae Jemison? The youngest of three children born to Charlie and Dorothy Jemison, Mae Jemison, M.D., was born in Decatur, Alabama in 1956, but grew up in Chicago. Her family influenced her love of science, as did Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura on the classic TV series Star Trek. As she told CNN in June, 2005, “[Star Trek]had this crew that was composed of people from all around the world and they were working together to learn more about the universe. So that helped to fuel my whole idea that I could be involved in space exploration as well as in the sciences." Throughout her primary and secondary education, Dr. Jemison not only studied science, but was involved in student government, ballet and modern dance. At the age of 16, she graduated from Morgan Park High School in Chicago and went to Stanford on a scholarship. Four years later, she graduated with degrees in chemical engineering and African-American studies. As a medical school student at Cornell, Dr. Jemison traveled to Cuba, Kenya and Thailand, determined to use her training to help those without access to modern medical care. Her internship at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in 1982 prepared her for work as a general practitioner for INA/Ross Loos Medical Group in Los Angeles, and then as the Peace Corps medical officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia in western Africa. She stayed in Africa until 1985, and then returned to Los Angeles to work in general practice. Dr. Jemison originally applied to enter the astronaut program in November, 1985, but the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger put the selection process on hold. In June, 1987, Dr. Jemison received her invitation to come to Houston. The training and preparation finally paid off on September 12, 1992, when Dr. Jemison rode the space shuttle Endeavour to orbit, along with six other crewmembers. Her mission, STS-47, was a joint American-Japanese Spacelab mission concentrating on experiments in life sciences and material sciences. Dr. Jemison conducted several experiments and was co-investigator on a bone cell research experiment. Dr. Jemison logged a total of 7 days, 22 hours, 30 minutes and 23 seconds during that historic flight. To date, she is the only African-American woman to travel in space. To understand the importance of Dr. Jemison’s achievement, consider the following points: 1) Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman of any nationality in space, made 48 orbits of the earth on board Vostok 6 in June, 1963—over 19 years before Jemison made her flight. 2) Guion Bluford, who made his first flight in space on board the space shuttle Challenger in 1983 and was the first African-American of either gender in space, made three trips into orbit prior to September 12, 1992. STS-47 would be Dr. Jemison’s only trip to space. She left NASA in March, 1993, to concentrate on teaching and business. The Jemison Group, Inc., based in Houston, has been involved in a number of projects to integrate advances in science and technology to benefit people in everyday life. In 1994, she began The Earth We Share™, a four-week international summer camp that allows students between the ages of 12 and 16 an opportunity to explore diverse problems and issues, to understand how they can use science and technology to solve them. In July, 1999, she founded a second business, BioSentient Corporation, which develops and markets mobile equipment designed to monitor the human body’s vital signs. The Jemison Group holds an exclusive license from NASA to commercialize BioSentient’s technologies. And in addition to serving separate professorships at Dartmouth and Cornell, she has remained in demand as a lecturer, delivering speeches to organizations like Intel, the National Society of Black Engineers and the United Nations. Dr. Jemison has earned numerous accolades for her work on the ground and in space. Among those honors include the Johnson Publications Black Achievements Trailblazer Award (1992), induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame (1993), and inclusion in People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People In The World (1993). Most fitting of all, though, is that Dr. Jemison made a guest appearance on the hit TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1993. Among the most versatile and most accomplished human beings to ever don a spacesuit, Dr. Mae Jemison has gone where no other African-American woman has gone before. As a result, she earns distinction as a Living Groundbreaker. Author’s Note: I’m still trying to get on Jeopardy! ------------ About the author: Claxton Graham has written a number of articles for Useless Knowledge. He works as a business systems analyst. Email: scifiwriter8502@email.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. 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