On the mission, she served as a flight engineer and helped operate the shuttle’s robotic arm. On her first mission, flying on NASA’s Space Shuttle Atlantis in 1985, Cleave became the 10th woman to travel into space. “For me, space flight was great, but it was gravy on top of getting to fly in great airplanes,” she told NASA.Ĭleave said she had been working at a research lab and finishing her doctoral studies in Utah when she saw an ad at a local post office stating that NASA was searching for scientists to join the astronaut corps. At one point, Cleave said, she had wanted to be a flight attendant, but found that at 5-foot-2, she was too short for the role under airline rules at the time.Ĭleave noted that affirmative action helped pave the way for her passions, allowing her the opportunity to fly supersonic jets known as T-38s. She told NASA’s Oral History Project in 2002 that she was enamored with flying airplanes growing up, and she earned her pilot’s license before her driver’s license. She studied biological sciences at Colorado State University before going on to earn her master’s in microbial ecology and a doctorate in civil and environmental engineering from Utah State University. She will be missed.”Ĭleave - who died Monday, according to the statement - was a native of Great Neck, New York. “Mary was a force of nature with a passion for science, exploration, and caring for our home planet. Mary Cleave, shuttle astronaut, veteran of two spaceflights, and first woman to lead the Science Mission Directorate as associate administrator,” said NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana in a statement. Mary Cleave, the NASA astronaut who in 1989 became the first woman to fly on a space shuttle mission after the Challenger disaster, has died at the age of 76, the space agency announced on Wednesday.
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