"American physician and former NASA astronaut Mae Carol Jemison, left, became the first black woman to travel in space in 1992.  As an astronaut, Jemison served as a liaison between the astronaut corps and launch operations at Kennedy Space Center, <a href=""http://www.drmae.com/biography-3-563"" target=""_blank"">according to her biography</a>. She also flew aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour  in the first joint mission with the Japanese Space Agency. Fellow astronaut Sally Ride, right, helped pave the way for Jemison's career: In 1983, she flew to space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, becoming the first American woman (and, at 32, the youngest American) to enter space. She flew on Challenger again in 1984 and later was the only person to serve on both panels that investigated the nation's space shuttle disasters in 1986 and 2003. Ride<a href=""http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/23/us/sally-ride-dead""> died in December 2012</a>."
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