RESPECT: Nichelle Nichols

 Nichelle Nichols company "Women In Motion" was hired buy NASA to recruit women and minorities into the Shuttle program.

Before she came on board NASA only got 1500 Astronaut application in 8 months.
Fewer than 100 were from women and only 35 from minorities.
Nichols went across the country recruiting, on talk shows and even doing radio and TV PSA's that ran in prime time.
When she was finished she had over 8,000 applications - 1,649 from women and over 1,000 from minorities.
NASA was so impressed with her results they increased the 1978 Astronaut class roster from 25 to 35.
Sally Ride, Judith Resnik, Anna Fisher, Rhea Seddon, Kathryn D Sullivan and Shannon Lucid were the first six women picked.
Ride would become the first female Astronaut to fly in space with Resnik second.
Kathryn Sullivan would become the first woman to perform an EVA.
Shannon Lucid held the record for the longest duration stay in space by an American, as well as by a woman. She has flown in space five times including a prolonged mission aboard the Mir space station in 1996. She is the only American woman to have served aboard Mir.
Lucid held the record until Sunita Williams broke her record 20 years later.
Nichols would later recruit another woman Astronaut Eileen Collins- First woman to become a Shuttle commander.
Nichelle Nichols did all this and more in just a recruitment campaign of only four months!
#NASA #sallyride #judyresnick #Nichellenichols