"Flight crew, close and lock your visors. Initiate O2 flow. Good luck on your mission, and see you in a week."

With these words, amid a burst of red flames and towering smoke, the space shuttle embarked on its perilous journey.

For all the astronauts on board, clad in bright orange pressure suits, the launch marked the culmination of years of hard work and rigorous training.

But for one woman, it was not only an incredible personal achievement but also a historic moment. As then EndeavourNamed after the HMS Endeavour, the ship that took Captain James Cook on his voyage of discovery, the American space shuttle went on 25 space missions between 1992 and 2011. crossed through the Earth's atmosphere on 12 September 1992, Mae Jemison became the first black woman ever to travel into space.

Jemison was born in Alabama in 1956 but moved to Chicago, the city she calls her hometown, aged three.

As a child, she spent hours watching Star TrekA science fiction series that began as a TV show in the 1960s. Jemison was particularly inspired by African American actress Nichelle Nichols' portrayal of the character Lieutenant Uhura. and studying astronomy, but the lack of female astronauts on the ApolloA US space programme which ran from 1961 to 1972 and took 12 astronauts to the moon and the ancient Greek god of the sun, poetry, and archery. missions played on her mind. "Everybody was thrilled about space, but I remember being really irritated that there were no women astronauts."

Not everyone encouraged her passion for space. When she told one teacher she intended to pursue science, they assumed she wanted to be a nurse.

Aged just 16, won a scholarship to the prestigious Stanford University to study chemical engineering, but in a place with few black students, her intelligence was often dismissed.

"I would ask a question and a professor would act as if it was just so dumb. Then, when a white guy would ask the same question, the professor would say, 'That's a very astute observation.'" She later recalled that it was her "youthful arrogance" that helped her face the discrimination.

A keen dancer, Jemison considered becoming a professional upon graduation but instead opted for medical school. As a doctor, she travelled the world, training in refugee camps in Thailand and working as a Peace CorpsAn agency and volunteer programme set up by the US government in the 1960s to provide social and economic assistance to developing countries. Jemison worked in both Liberia and Sierra Leone with the group. medic in Sierra Leone.

For many people, this might be a list of achievements to last a lifetime, but in 1985 Jemison decided to change her career and follow her childhood dreams.

Unwilling to "wait around in a cornfield, waiting for E.T.The title character from a 1980s science fiction film about a boy who befriends an extraterrestrial who is stranded on Earth. to pick me up", she applied to NASA's training programme. It was not good timing - the 1986 Challenger disasterThe Challenger space shuttle, part of the US space programme, broke apart 73 seconds into its 10th flight in January 1986, killing all seven crew members. put the selection process on hold - but when she reapplied a year later she was one of just 15 people chosen from 2,000 candidates.

She finally achieved lift-off as part of STS-47, the 50th Space ShuttleThe fourth human spaceflight programme carried out by NASA between 1981 and 2011. Each mission could take up to eight astronauts into space. mission. Orbiting the earth 127 times in eight days, Jemison took part in 43 experiments, including a study of tadpoles in zero gravity.

And throughout it all, she remained a huge Star Trek fan. In space, she began shifts with the salute "hailing frequencies open". Then, when she returned to Earth, she became the first real astronaut to appear on the Star Trek TV series.

STS-47 proved to be Mae Jemison's first and last space flight. But since leaving NASA in 1993, she has become an academic, a public speaker, an entrepreneur, and even a children's author.¹ And she still dances.

Yes, say some. Mae Jemison overcame terrific challenges, including racism and sexism, to become the first black woman in space. Thousands of people are successful in business, and even medicine, every year, but only a select few ever become astronauts. They undergo brutal training regimes in order to undertake pioneering research in a hostile environment - astronauts deserve all the respect they get.

No, say others. There is no doubt that Mae Jemison is an extremely impressive person, but it is her work as a Peace Corps doctor, children's writer, and even dancer that we should be most inspired by. Her time with NASA was only a short part of a long and incredible career, and it is Jemison's willingness to defy naysayers to pursue her passions - not her space travel - that is most remarkable.