TBT: From 140 Miles Above Earth to 7 Miles Under the Ocean

TBT: Super Awesome People™ in History.

Dr. Kathy Sullivan first made history in 1984, and on June 7, 2020, she did it again.

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Kathryn D. Sullivan was born on October 3, 1951 in Paterson, New Jersey, and grew up in Woodland Hills, California. According to her NASA biography, Sullivan received a B.S. in Earth sciences from U.C. Santa Cruz in 1973, and her P.H.D. in geology from Dalhousie University (Nova Scotia) in 1978.

In 1978, Dr. Sullivan was selected by NASA as one of 35 new astronaut candidates which included six women—Sullivan, Shannon W. Lucid, Margaret Rhea Seddon, Judith A. Resnik, Anna L. Fisher, and Sally K. Ride. They were the first official female astronauts at NASA, after a group of women dubbed the “Mercury 13” underwent some training in the 1960s but were never made astronauts.

On June 18, 1983 Sally Ride became the first American woman in space (20 years after Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova). Sixteen months later on October 11, 1984, Dr. Sullivan became the first American woman to conduct an Extravehicular Activity (EVA) when she spacewalked with Lieutenant Commander David C. Leestma outside the Challenger on her first space flight (three months after the first woman to spacewalk, Svetlana Savitskaya).

Dr. Sullivan flew three space missions in total: STS-41-G on the Space Shuttle Challenger (October 5-13, 1984); STS-31 on the Space Shuttle Discovery (April 24-29, 1990); and STS-45 on the Space Shuttle Atlantis (March 24-April 2, 1992). During the Discovery mission in 1990, Dr. Sullivan assisted in the deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope which has taken incredible photos and helped scientists make amazing discoveries over the past 30 years. Dr. Sullivan spent a total of 532 hours in space—3.5 hours of which were the spacewalk.

Nearly 36 years after her historic spacewalk, Dr. Sullivan became the eighth person (and the first woman) to descend to the deepest part of the ocean—the Challenger Deep. The Challenger Deep, part of the Mariana Trench with a depth of (35,768-35,856 feet), was first explored in 1960 by Jacques Piccard and Navy Lt. Don Walsh. When Dr. Sullivan made her historic dive alongside explorer Victor L. Vescovo, she became the first person ever to walk in space and to dive to the deepest place in the ocean—from 140 miles above Earth’s surface to 7 miles below.

Other Notable Achievements

• Served in the U.S. Naval Reserve as an oceanography officer from 1988 to 2006, and retired with the rank of Captain.
• Left NASA in 1993 to become chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
• Served as President and CEO of the Center of Science & Industry (COSI) from 1996-2006.
• Inducted into NASA’s Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2004.
• Became Acting NOAA Administrator in February 2013 and was officially confirmed by the Senate as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator on March 6, 2014.
• Author of Handprints on Hubble, An Astronaut’s Story of Invention (2019).
• Other recognitions: Election to the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Women Aviators Hall of Fame, Women Divers Hall of Fame, and Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame.
• Awards: The Explorers Club Medal, Two Lowell Thomas Awards, the Rachel Carson Award, an Emmy, and nine honorary degrees.

Suggested Reading

• Seven Questions: Former COSI CEO Kathy Sullivan on Space Exploration (2020, Columbus Monthly)
• “Really Great,” Says the First Woman from U.S. to Take a Walk in Space (1984, New York Times)
• Mercury 13: The Untold Story of Women Testing for Spaceflight in the 1960s (2018, The Guardian)