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Actress Nichelle Nichols is most famous for playing Lt. Uhura on the original Star Trek series. Uhura was noteworthy for being one of the first African-American female characters who was not casted as a servant. Her role was so groundbreaking and iconic in the U.S. that even Martin Luther King Jr. praised the character. It has been 49 years since she first took the role. Nichols, now 82, gets to be part of an official NASA mission.
A Long Relationship With Space
Nichols has been involved with NASA for a long time. In the 1960s, she became an official ambassador for the organization. She mainly worked to encourage women and people of color to become astronauts. Since Lt. Uhura was such a beloved character, it worked wonders – she reportedly played a role in the recruiting people like Sally Ride and Charles Bolden, the current NASA administrator.
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It’s Finally Her Turn
Nichols finally gets to take part in a NASA mission herself. And she deserves to have some fun after suffering a stroke in June. Though she will not be going into space, she will get to fly on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). The SOFIA is an aircraft equipped with a powerful telescope that is used to study the planet’s atmosphere, investigate comets and more.
“SOFIA does not, sadly, fly into space,” Nichols said. “It’s an airborne observatory, a massive telescope mounted inside a 747 flying as high as is possible. I was on a similar flight, the first airborne observatory, back in 1977. It’s an amazing experience, you get a totally different perspective than from Earth. I do hope someone gets some great pictures.”
The flight takes off on Sept. 15.
