Remembering Astronaut Judy Resnik, Her Accomplishments

CLEAR LAKE, TX — It's been nearly 40 years since Judy Resnik was selected as a part of NASA's first astronaut class to feature women. She was the second American female astronaut in space. Tragically, Resnik died in alongside six other astronauts in the 1986 Challenger explosion.

Resnik logged 145 hours in orbit on the first flight of the shuttle orbiter Discovery, a press release from the Houston Space Center says. Their mission was to deploy three satellites and they removed ice particles from the orbiter, leading to their nickname "Icebusters."

While she was a pioneer and a role model for girls all over with interest in space, Resnik didn't focus much on that factor. "Astronauts don’t have to be either very feminine or very masculine women or very superhuman males,” she said in 1979. “It’s about people in space.”

Here's a bit of Judy's background, from the Houston Space Center:

She received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon in 1970 and a doctorate in the same field from the University of Maryland seven years later. Resnik received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor posthumously in 2004, had a lunar crater named after her along with an engineering lecture hall at the University of Maryland. The Society of Women Engineers’ annual award, the Resnik Challenger Medal, goes to a woman who changed the space industry as voted on by her peers.

Resnik's T-38 flight suit is on display in Astronaut Gallery in honor of her life and accomplishments.

See the Houston Space Center website for more.

Article image NASA via Houston Space Center