Dr. Kathryn Sullivan • First US Woman to Walk in Space
(NASA Astronaut | Naval Officer | Former NOAA Administrator || OH USA)
“My first full-time job was Astronaut. During my first launch in 1984, I was in one of the seats in the upper flight deck with six large windows in front of me. I had been staring intently down at the instrument panels while the engines ran. Finally they cut off — we were in orbit. I looked up over Jon McBride’s shoulder. The shuttle was upside down, so the windows were black below with a blue and white arc of the Earth above. I, unthinking and unable to help myself, blurted: ‘WOW, look at that!’ Of course we’re still in the middle of a demanding checklist, so at 8.5 minutes into the flight I had my commander chastising me for not paying attention. Allowances were made for rookie reactions when seeing the Earth from space for the first time.
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I was the first US woman to spacewalk. It feels like scuba diving — you’re neutrally buoyant and moving a large mass, you plus 350 lbs of space suit, with just your fingertips. Imagine scuba diving on a really cool jungle gym with a bunch of nooks, crannies and odd angles. You have to think of a spacesuit as replacing every function a space shuttle provides to keep you alive — you’re flying your own spaceship. You have to focus on the task at hand: our mission was to practice refueling the Landsat 4 satellite. If you get to do a spacewalk, it pays to do it well because you want to do another. It’s precious time.
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You get very few moments to pause — but our commander made sure we took them. We were 200 miles above the Earth. We had an IMAX camera aboard in the cabin — they wanted a neat, dramatic shot of our spacewalk. Most of the time Dave Leestma and I were at the shuttle’s aft end, 60 ft away from the camera. You’d have to squint to see the little white dots wearing spacesuits. But, for the shot, I was about 10 ft behind the camera window and the guys radioed, ‘Hold up, just about ready for the scene.’ That gave me a moment to pause — my feet were pointing towards the Earth, and as I moved my gaze downward, the very distinctive Maracaibo peninsula of Venezuela was sliding right between my boots.”
