Trailblazers

When most of us picture an astronaut, we tend to imagine the same handful of faces from the 1960s: military test pilots, all cut from a similar mold. That story was never the whole story, and it's getting less true every year.

Scientists, engineers, astronauts, and space leaders like these have blazed a trail for the rest of us to follow, and they come from far more backgrounds and life paths than the old image of an astronaut suggests. Here are videos and resource links to learn more about them. These trailblazers can also be great subjects for students to study in a ROLE MODELS media project.

Mary Golda Ross

Mary Golda Ross, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and great-great-granddaughter of Principal Chief John Ross, became the first known Native American woman engineer, working on classified aerospace projects at Lockheed's Skunk Works from 1942 to 1973. Her work helped shape the Agena rocket program and early concepts for interplanetary spaceflight, decades before Herrington ever left Earth, and she now appears on the 2019 Native American dollar coin.

John Herrington

John Herrington, an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation, became the first Native American to fly in space when he launched aboard the space shuttle Endeavour in 2002. He carried an eagle feather, a Cherokee made flute, and the Chickasaw Nation flag with him into orbit, and completed three spacewalks during the mission.

Nicole Mann

Nicole Mann, a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, became the first Native American woman in space in 2022 when she commanded NASA's SpaceX Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station. A former Marine Corps fighter pilot and mechanical engineer, she carried a dream catcher her mother had given her as a child throughout her 157 days in orbit.

Christina Koch

Christina Koch set the record for the longest single spaceflight ever completed by a woman, spending 328 days aboard the International Space Station, and took part in the first all women spacewalk in history. In 2026 she flew as a mission specialist on Artemis II, becoming the first woman to travel around the Moon.

Mae Jemison

Mae Jemison became the first Black woman to travel into space in 1992 as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Endeavour. A physician and engineer as well as an astronaut, she later founded a science camp for teenagers and became the first real astronaut to appear on Star Trek.

Katherine Johnson

Katherine Johnson was a NASA mathematician whose hand calculated trajectories helped send American astronauts into orbit, including personally verifying the math for John Glenn's 1962 orbital flight at his own request. Her story, once largely uncredited, later inspired the book and movie Hidden Figures and earned her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.

Ellen Ochoa

Ellen Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman to travel into space in 1993, went on to fly three more shuttle missions, and later served as director of NASA's Johnson Space Center. A classically trained flutist, she became the first person to play music in orbit, performing on the flight deck during her first mission.

Aaron Yazzie

Aaron Yazzie, a member of the Navajo Nation, is a mechanical engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who designed the drill bits the Perseverance rover uses to collect Mars rock samples. He also helped bring Navajo language into some of the names given to landmarks on Mars, a currently working engineer rather than a historical figure.

Jose M. Hernandez

José Hernández spent his childhood following the harvest with his migrant farmworker family through California's San Joaquin Valley, not learning English until he was 12. He became an engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and after applying to NASA's astronaut program 11 times, flew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery in 2009 as the first former migrant farmworker in space.