Mary Cleave, the first woman to fly on a space shuttle mission after the Challenger disaster, has passed away at the age of 76, NASA announced on Wednesday. The space agency did not disclose a cause of death.
“I’m sad we’ve lost trail blazer Dr. 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 was a force of nature with a passion for science, exploration, and caring for our home planet. She will be missed.”
Cleave, who died Monday, according to the statement, was a native of Great Neck, New York. She studied biological sciences at Colorado State University before earning her master’s in microbial ecology and a doctorate in civil and environmental engineering from Utah State University.
From air to space
In a 2002 interview with NASA’s Oral History Project, Cleave explained that she was fascinated with flying airplanes from a young age, even earning her pilot’s license before her driver’s license. Affirmative action granted her the opportunity to fly supersonic jets, she noted. Space flight, according to Cleave, was “gravy on top of getting to fly in great airplanes.”
After seeing an ad at a local post office, Cleave applied to join the astronaut corps and was selected in 1980.
Getting to orbit
On her first mission in 1985, Cleave became the 10th woman to travel into space on NASA’s Space Shuttle Atlantis. Her second flight, STS-30 in 1989, came after NASA reverted to flying all-male crews for three missions following the Challenger explosion.
Cleave was known to downplay the “firsts” she marked as a female astronaut, saying it was just a normal part of the thing, as she was close friends with astronaut Judith Resnick, who died on Challenger.
Women in space
Cleave emphasized that the focus for women in the corps at the time was always on their jobs. She was part of the first female-to-female space communication at NASA when she served on mission control’s CapCom during Sally Ride’s flight in 1983.
NASA and beyond
After her second mission, Cleave expressed growing concern about environmental issues and the planet changing as she viewed it from space. This, along with a passion for environmental work, led her to retire from NASA in 2007 and take on a role at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland working on a project called SeaWiFS.
Cleave later moved to work at NASA’s headquarters in Washington, DC, and went on to become the first woman to hold the title of associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. She retired from NASA in 2007 to focus on volunteer work and encouraging young women to pursue a career in science.
Source: NASA
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