A TIMELINE OF WOMEN IN SPACE

(URLs beneath pictures denote source of image)

1959 - Jerrie Cobb, one of the "Mercury Thirteen," passes tests for the Mercury astronaut training program but is never allowed to fly in space

1963 - June - Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space when she flies Vostok 6, spending more time in space than all of the previous Mercury flights combined.

1978 - NASA chooses six female astronaut candidates: Anna Fisher, Shannon Lucid, Judith Resnik, Sally Ride, Rhea Seddon, and Kathryn Sullivan

1983 - June - Dr. Sally Ride, NASA astronaut, becomes the first American woman in space

Sally Ride on STS-7, 1983.

(http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blbio_ride_sally.htm)

1984 - July - Svetlana Savitskaya is the first woman to walk in space

1984 - October - Kathryn Sullivan is the first American woman to walk in space

1984 - August - Anna Fisher becomes the first person to retrieve a malfunctioning satellite using the Space Shuttle's remote manipulator arm

1986 - January - US astronauts Christa McAuliffe and Judith Resnik are killed in the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger, the first women to die during a space mission

1992 - May - Kathy Thornton, the second woman to walk in space, sets the record for longest space walk by a woman

1992 - June/July - Bonnie Dunbar and Ellen Baker are among the first American crew to doc with Mir, the Russian space station

1992 - September - Mae Jemison is the first African American woman in space

Great rendering of Mae Jemison!

http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level1/jemison.html

1993 - April - Ellen Ochoa is the first Hispanic American woman in space

1994 - July - Chiaki Mukai is the first Japanese woman in space

1995 - February - Eileen Collins is the first woman to pilot a space shuttle

1996 - September - Shannon Lucid returns from six months on Mir, the Russian space station, setting the record for time in space for women and for Americans -- she is also the first woman to be awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor

The Congressional Space Medal of Honor

(http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Congressional%20Space%20Medal%20of%20Honor)

1998 - May - Nearly 2/3 of the flight control team for STS-95 are women, including the launch commentator, Lisa Malone, the ascent commentator, Eileen Hawley, the flight director, Linda Harm, and the communicator between crew and mission control (CAPCOM), Susan Still

1998 - December - Nancy Currie completes the first task in assembling the International Space Station

1999 - July - Eileen Collins is the first woman to command a space shuttle

Eileen Collins aboard the shuttle simulator flight deck

(http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/frontiers/collins.html)

2003 - February - US astronauts Kalpana Chawla and Laurel Clark are killed in the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia

2004 - Judy Resnik, Christa McAuliffe, Kalpana Chawla, and Laurel Clark are all awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor

2005? - Eileen Collins commands the first shuttle flight following the Columbia disaster