On this day in space! NASA astronaut Mae Jemison makes history as the 1st Black woman in space

On Sept.

12, 1992, NASA astronaut Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to go to space.

In NASA's early days, women and people of color were never selected to go to space.

NASA didn't send a woman to space until the seventh space shuttle mission in 1983.

NASA launched the first Black man in space, astronaut Guion Bluford , on the following mission that same year.

Women in Space: A Gallery of Firsts But it would take another nine years for NASA to finally select a Black woman to fly on STS-47, the 50th space shuttle mission.

Jemison was a trained engineer and licensed physician who served in the Peace Corps before applying to become an astronaut.

She worked as a mission specialist on STS-47 and logged over 190 hours in space.

STS-47 was her only mission.

In 1993, she retired from NASA and went on to found her own company, the Jemison Group, which is a technology consulting firm.

NASA astronaut Mae Jemison flew on space shuttle Endeavour in September 1992, becoming the first Black woman to travel to space. (Image credit: NASA) Why it mattered Mae Jemison's historic launch on STS-47 was a milestone for Black astronauts and NASA's growth into a more diverse space agency.

Jemison, who was born in Alabama and grew up in Chicago, joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1987 as an astronaut candidate after years working as a the Area Peace Corp Medical Officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa (from 1983 to 1985).

Before that, she earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University (where she also studied African American Studies), and later a doctorate in medicine from Cornell University.

She was serving as a General Practitioner in medicine when she applied to be a NASA astronaut.