Astronaut Mae Jemison talk about her inspirational life and her new book (Live 3⧸1)

Touchdown confirmed. Perseverance, K-Police, honor for seeking the sands of past life. Good morning. I'm Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer for The Washington Post. Welcome to Washington Post Live. In 1992, aboard the space shuttle Endeavour, Dr. Mae Jamieson became the first black woman to go into space, but her history-making voyage might not have happened. In her memoir, Find Where the Wind Goes, Moments from My Life, Dr. Mae relives an encounter with her kindergarten teacher who asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. When Dr. Mae answered, scientist, the teacher encouraged her to become a nurse. Why was she so determined? Why did she desire to become a scientist? Where did it come from? How did she end up in space? Well, let's find out. Dr. Mae Jamieson, welcome to Washington Post Live. Thank you so much. I'm very pleased to be here and very pleased to be with you, Jonathan. Oh, thank you very much. So let's talk about your memoir and this encounter that you had. In the book, you write from the perspective of a 16-year-old, your 16-year-old self. Take us back to being a 16-year-old. And also, I should point out, you were a 16-year-old attending Stanford. Yes. So it's really sort of a little bit of me writing what I think my 16-year-old self would have wanted to know about adventures that she would have in life and some of the clues to make it through. And what I mean about the clues are paying attention. In the book, it was really sort of moments. I think about the fact that it was who I intended to be that made a difference versus a job. It was the person I wanted to be. And that person was one of discovery, that always wanted new challenges, that hoped to make a difference in this world. At the same time, keeping my integrity and my smile and my humanity. That child grew up during the 1960s. I wasn't quite old enough to be a hippie, always wanted to be one though. But the reason why was because the world was changing. All around us, we saw new norms coming in. People were challenging what was established and also asserting their right to participate. And I remember growing up, everyone talked about anarchy, that the 60s were just too chaotic. But the reality was, again, people wanted to participate. And that's the environment I grew up in. One where there was a women's rights movement, a civil rights movement. Space exploration was exploding, which I was very excited about. Science, we're breaking records. Culture was changing. Arts, music. And we were reaching around the world. All of a sudden, the world became much closer. We learned about decolonialization all these countries. So it was this assertion. And that's the world I grew up in. And that very much affected me and who I wanted to be. And so I always assumed I could do so many things and follow so many paths. I knew the world had to come along with me at times, but I always assumed I'd go into space. And I thought that people who didn't have women included were just wrongheaded. That's my little self. Well, you have said that you were a little arrogant about attending college at 16. I mean, why wouldn't you be? You're 16, and you're in college, and you're in Stanford. But you say some arrogance is necessary for women and people of color to be successful in a white male-dominated society. How were you able to have that perspective and to have the perseverance to push through and succeed? So I use the term arrogant because I had done very well in all standardized tests. I went to an integrated high school. I'd been student council president, all these things. And I was very excited about the world around me. And I had had teachers of all kinds. I wanted to push. But at 16, you're not well socialized yet, right? You still had that little edge on you, right? When I got to Stanford, I ran into teachers, professors who were not as excited about me being in their class. And I still needed that edge in order just to assert that I was there, to go ahead and unabashedly claim my place. If I had been better socialized to believe and take to heart these emotions, these things that I was getting from people, from the professors, I might not have been here. I may have said, oh, well, I need to do something else versus chemical engineering. What I did instead was I took lots of classes with dance and linguistics and politics of Africa, things that really held my interest as well as the engineering. And it made a really incredible, it created a balance in my life and in my world. And I had professors who were excited about my intellectual curiosity. And let me be clear, I think Stanford was the best school I could have gone to. And I had ran into some wonderful professors there in the sciences as well. But the overall feel was, hmm, should you be here? Mm-hmm. Dr. May, as you were talking, I was sitting here wondering, you're 16 years old, two year in a space, as you said, where people are like, why are you here? We don't want you here. As a 16-year-old, who were your mentors? Were there people you could turn to for support? It's one thing to be in a place where you're not made to feel welcome. It's another to be in a place where you're not made to feel welcome, and you're 16. Well, again, I think that 16-year-old helped me, really. She was pretty assertive. A little naive. Assertive, but a little naive in that not knowing really how the world worked. No, she knew how the world worked. She knew how to, some of the stories that I tell there were just about even pushing against school principals and doing things, but I had teachers who really cared about my intellect and who I was. But I think when you ask about the mentors, we have to be careful in assuming that everybody has to be in the field you're in. Sometimes it's that support that you need in terms of just energy. So I had these incredible people that I worked with. I tell the story about Dr. Halifu Osamare, who was the dance instructor for Black Performing Arts at Stanford, and that's where I started learning African dance and so many other things that I danced all the way through high school. She used to always have this smile, and she'd push me to do better as a dancer. But the other part of it is that I had professors in the political science fields that I worked with that were excited about what I did. All along though, you have people that you can work with and they help you to look at a view of the world. I had a scholarship that was sponsored by Bell Laboratories, and every summer I would have an incredible job at Bell Labs that would range from things like working on computer programming, writing computer programming and code for special projects at the laboratory to working on one of two nuclear magnetic resonance machines in the world. And I got to work on it. So it was that range of experience. I don't think that there's a single person. And sometimes we use the word mentor and we throw it around really loosely, but we throw around the word role model loosely. I think that mentors usually take you throughout your career. And I did not have anyone who took me throughout my career except for my parents and things, and they were there in my corner. But you run into people. You run into different people. You see different things and you can transfer them. You can translate that energy into who you are to unabashedly be you. I call those people guardian angels. Those are the people who see you before you see yourself. They see your potential. They see what you can do and they push you and sometimes push you real hard in those directions. Let me ask you about someone who, and I want you to talk about how, and what an inspiration she was for you. You've said that as a child watching actress Nichelle Nichols portray Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek also inspired you, your desire to pursue a career with NASA. And in fact, Nichols went on to become a recruiter for NASA and she told them, and this is a quote, I'm going to bring you so many qualified women and minority astronaut applicants for this position that if you don't choose one, everybody in the newspapers across the country will know about it. So Dr. May, what was it about Nichols or her fictional character that spoke to you? So growing up as a little girl, I always assumed I'd go into space and I wanted to go into space before Star Trek came on. But I think the piece was Star Trek was an affirmation and Nichelle Nichols' character, Lieutenant Uhura, was one that spoke to being involved technologically. Star Trek spoke to the fact that other people believed in the universe that I believed in, that I had the right to participate and to be involved. So the incredible thing about Nichelle Nichols, and as I became her friend later on in life, is that she brought such character, strength, and assertiveness to Lieutenant Uhura. So you never thought of her as a lesser member of the crew. I was always irritated that they didn't give her a bigger role when I was a little girl. I was that kid, right? But she brought such gravitas, let us say, to the portrayal that you wanted to be like, you could channel that gravitas, that stature, that confidence, that competence in your own life. So I think that fiction also helps us to see that. Our stories that people put in front of us help us to see different ways of interacting with the world. In 1983, the flight of Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, motivated you to apply to NASA's astronaut program. Nine years later, you yourself go up into space. One, what was that like going into space? And two, what was it like going into space knowing the history you were taking with you on that voyage? So I just want to go back to the reason why I want to correct this is because sometimes, actually, I was going to apply to the astronaut program as soon as I had the qualifications. In 1978, I was still in college, so there was no way for me to apply to the astronaut program then. So that's when they first recruited the shuttle astronauts and stuff. So I was going to go no matter what and always want to recognize that there were six women who came in to the astronaut program in 1978. There were three African-American men. There was Allison Onizuka, a Japanese American. And so I was really excited about applying as soon as I got the skill set. And so I was just, I was there. What it was like going up into space? I should first say that I didn't want to go into space necessarily because, you know, people said, did you want to be the first African-American woman in space? I didn't care if there had been thousands of people in space before or if there had never been a single person I wanted to go up. I wanted to be involved. I think there was a recognition that you have a responsibility to use your platform. For me, it was making sure that I included others, people who would not necessarily be involved. So the way I did that inclusion, particularly around the flight, was that I took up various things with me. I took up a poster of Judith Jameson performing the dance cry, an Alvin Ailey poster. For all black women everywhere, I took up a Bundu statue, B-U-N-D-U, which is a women's society in West Africa. I took up a certificate for Chicago public school students to promise to do well in math and science, which was duplicated and given to students in Chicago, which is where I grew up. I took up an Alpha Kappa Alpha flag. The oldest African-American woman sorority in the country. And I wanted to do that because I wanted other people to know that they were a part of this universe in this world as well. I took up a flag for the OAU, the Organization of African Unity, so that I could give these things back so that people were included. I didn't need to take up another Stanford banner, as much as I love Stanford or Cornell. They had those up there. But all along, my issue has been, how do we make sure that we include people and we use the talent that's there? One of the things we forget when we look at science, when we look at space, is it's not just about, oh, you get up there and you do everything that everyone else would do. We each bring our own perspectives to our work. What a shame it would be if I were to go into space and I did not use what I'd learned from having worked in West Africa for two and a half years, having been a doctor, having grown up on the south side of Chicago, if I did not use that perspective to ask questions, to understand how the technologies work, what are some possible applications. What a shame it would be if I had the experience of being an astronaut and I did not take that and use it to the work that I do now and all along, to ask those same, to use that to bring my perspective to what's happening in the world now. And each time, it should be iterative. So you're Alpha Kappa Alpha. The colors are pink and green. Was there any pink and green on any of your astronaut wear? No. I had to ask. I had to ask. All right. So you're going to keep in trouble. Please. I've already gotten in trouble with the sorority. But following your mission to space in 92, there have been 11 black astronauts who've been on space missions. Currently, out of the 47 active astronauts, only three are black women. How should NASA work to make sure there are more Dr. Mays? Well, they don't need to have Dr. Mays. They need to have the people who, that are full representation, and they need to fly them. And they need to use their perspectives as well. I think that there has been some evolution. But a lot of times, it's about being able to hear and understand and go to the places that people are to be able to recruit them. I should also talk about the fact that there are incredibly incredible other positions within NASA that we sometimes forget. We always look at NASA as in space exploration as astronauts. But I can be clear that the astronauts would not go anywhere without the work that was done before, right? Or that's done with other people. So from mission control to the technicians who put the shuttle together, or who put the vehicles together, that's what we also fail to highlight. So they're the technicians, they're the engineers, they're the people who are doing the work day to day, whether it's in legal systems. It's much bigger than the astronauts. Let me also say that the applications are much bigger than what we see on Space Station, or what we see when we just think about it as humans in space. It's how do we apply what we've learned to improve life down here on Earth? And again, I would assert that who's involved makes a difference to the application of the technologies. Well, let's talk more about space travel. Do you really believe we will be able to travel beyond our solar system within 100 years? So you're asking that because I lead this project called 100 Year Starship, which is about making sure the capabilities for human travel beyond our solar system exists within the next 100 years. And so notice I say make sure the capabilities exist. I didn't say that it's about having the Starship Enterprise ready to go and warp out. No, I don't think that's it. But why do we want the capabilities to exist? Because it pushes us very radically to come up with new ideas. Just take, for example, the kind of energy that's needed to get to another star. Without going too far into it, there is not enough chemical propulsion in the entire solar system to really power a ship that would carry humans to another star within a reasonable period of time. So we have to learn how to control incredible amounts of energy. We have to do it through fission, which we do now, but you have to control it and store that energy. And it has to be safely done. Our fusion, what powers the sun, our antimatter. We don't know how to do any of those to the level that we need to do. But imagine if we could, how it would change life here on Earth. And just by having that, people thinking about it and pushing those technologies, it makes a difference. And what we look at are the whole range of things that could happen, whether it's how do we understand human biology and our connection to the microbiome system on this planet, which we cannot live without, to even understanding human behavior. Because you know that's the long pole in the tent to everything that we do on this planet. It's a long pole on the tent to solving poverty, not of the people who are impoverished or who don't have as much, but the people who have control of so many resources and overuse them are the fact that we don't understand that we need to share this planet. But that human behavior is a major part of what we look at as well. Sorry, I cut you off there because I was excited to jump in and ask you about the Mars rover, Perseverance. And what, how big, I mean, as a lay person, it's a big deal. But you're a scientist, you're an astronaut. How big of a deal was that rover landing on Mars late last month? It was a big deal. And I think the other part of it is that the excitement around it is because of the new type of landing and some of the experiments that it was carrying with it. So from the helicopters that will be deployed, that'll be able to do surveys. So, and people can look at it like a drone on Mars. So you can look at different things to the possibility of doing a sample return back to Earth. Those were incredibly important pieces. I've been impressed this past February by what happened on Mars and around Mars because three probes from Earth entered Martian orbit this past February. There's a probe from the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, which was its first in a planetary probe called Hope. And there was also a probe from China, Taiwan that entered Mars orbit and may actually have a rover land on Mars in May or June. The reason why I consider this very exciting and helps to put perspective on perseverance is because it says that humanity is pushing forward and this venture is becoming more global. And I think that will help us in terms of perhaps using some of the technologies and the possibilities. Yeah. So yeah, we geeked out. I was watching the landing. It was exciting. And, but I, I always pull us into understanding the impact that these things have. The impact is, yes, we're going to learn more about Mars. People might ask, so what? Right. It wasn't a big deal. The big deal is we learn more about another planet. That's like being a doctor, right? Do you want your doctor to know only about your physiology or would you prefer them to know about a lot of people's physiology and health and perspective? You want that second one, right? And the reason why it helps us to understand perhaps the evolution of the earth and weather patterns and all the things that go are attended with it. You know, actually to that point in the images that have been beamed back to earth and that you have seen, do you see anything in those, in those images that sparked your curiosity or gave you an aha that we in the lay public might not even notice? I don't have any ahas. I'm just like thrilled that we're seeing another planet. Right. I'm probably, I'm probably right there with you. All of those things are going to take time. And you know, that's the reason why we have geologists, right? And those kinds of folks and people are going to spend a lot of time analyzing what are the components of Martian soil. And remember, we've been on Mars before. We are going to be building on knowledge. There are probes that are orbiting Mars now that are sending back information and data. So it's really building a picture of this planet that appears at one point in time had a lot of water on it that perhaps had even oxygen in its atmosphere. We're, we're spending time and understanding what happened to that, that planet and its evolution. Let's come back to earth here. And I, and I'm sorry to keep coming back to you being the first black woman in space and your history making effort. But I think we're, we're all focused on first, not just because we've just, you know, left black history month, but because this nation has gone through another first with the election of vice president Kamala Harris, the first woman to be elected in that role, the first black woman to be elected in that role, the first woman of Indian descent to be in that role. And I would just love to know from you what it means to you to see that, to see a vice president Kamala Harris in the history making role that she is in. Well, of course, it's very exciting. And what I always say is it tells us that we are progressing. So we're at this really interesting point in time right now, where there is a pendulum swinging back where folks say they want to go back to things. Right. And that's what struck me about this time period. And the reason why I thought it was important to do a revision and release, find where the wind goes again, because it very much parallels the sixties. And when I was growing up, even parts of the seventies, where there was the world was changing. And so many things have happened between then and now, we may forget that there was some evolution, there was some progress. And the fact that we had a woman, this is the first woman elected to national office, the first black woman elected to national office is really important because we say we see that there is progress, but we have to hold on to it and we have to use it. So I'm really excited that she uses her platform to push ahead, to include others, to include agendas from the perspective that she's grown up in, the knowledge base that she has. So it's just exciting all around. Let me add one other piece to that. Very frequently, people look at me and they say, oh, it's a really great image for young black girls. They look at Kamala Harris. We can go on and on. And they'll say it's a great image for young girls of color. But here's the reality check as well. It's an important image for everyone to see because the gatekeepers very frequently make their decisions because they say, oh, I haven't seen I like that around. So I don't know that they can do things. It never goes away, but that image is really important. You may not have seen it, but Kamala Harris is the vice president of the United States, period. So everyone knows that it's not only possible, it's a reality. And she has the authority that goes along with that. She has the authority that goes along with that position. I want to end with this question. And that is, we have seen over the last almost year, after the killing of George Floyd, a reignitement of social justice and racial justice protests around the country. Black Lives Matter is the mantra of the day. And I'm wondering, what would you say to those young activists who are out there marching still, even though they don't make the news, they are still marching. Given your lived experience, what you've been through, what would you say to them to encourage them in those moments that they might be in now or might be coming when they feel might feel discouraged, might feel that no one's listening, might feel that they aren't making progress? What do you say to them? So we are making progress. And I can tell you, I'm so excited about the fact that people are not sitting back and letting the world just take shape. They're asserting their right to shape it. So when I look at the Black Lives Matter movement, it's about the fact that all that we can make a difference in this world. There's so many things that I have been excited about that I'm seeing from the sort of the term Black Girl Magic, which I was discussing with someone yesterday, which is not leaving others out. It's asserting that we have the right to participate and that we have been there all along doing incredible work, even under the most trying of circumstances. I say that you're on the right path, that asserting your right to participate is the correct thing to do. You know, we have your back. I also want to add, before I leave, that one of the things that has struck me about being in FIRST and this position is forever, I'm the person in the orange flight suit, right? But we keep doing other work. So since the time I left NASA, I spent a lot of time in environmental sciences and education and actually building a connection between the sciences and society. And I would be remiss if I don't bring up how important it is that we understand that issues around race and gender affect the sciences. Who does science affects the outcome, the research that's done, the technologies that are done. And part of this movement that we see from Black Lives Matter to Black Girls Magic to whatever you want to call, whatever they are, they also are impacting the sciences, what our world will become. And I think that's really crucial because the perspective, the ambitions of the world impact its technology. We live in a world today where things are rapidly changing, not necessarily for the better. And there's a lot of it that's being impacted and being done are facilitated by the technologies we design and who uses them and what they're for. We have not only run out of time, we have gone over time and barely scratched the surface. I'm glad you got to mention 100 Years Starship Global Initiative, but there's also the Dorothy Jamison Foundation for Excellence and the Earth We Share Science Camps and the second edition of Find Where the Wind Goes. There's so much. Dr. Jamison, we are out of time. Thank you so very much for coming to Washington Post Live. You're very welcome. Thank you all for having me here and it's great to see you again virtually. Likewise. And as always, thank you for watching. My colleague David Ignatius has two special events today. First, at noon Eastern, David will interview Jeff Immelt, the former CEO of General on the global challenges business leaders face today. Then he'll be back at 3.30 Eastern to discuss a new documentary, Nasreen, about the imprisoned human rights activist. His guests will be CNN's Christiane Amanpour and Washington Post journalist and executive producer of the film, Jason Rezaian and filmmaker Jeff Kaufman. So that's today starting at noon Eastern. In the meantime, I'm Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer for The Washington Post. Thank you very much for tuning into Washington Post Live.