[crickets chirp]
- [Mission Control] Okay, all flight controllers, RETRO.
- [Man] Go.
- [Mission Control] FIDO. - [Man] Go.
- [Mission Control] Guidance. - [Man] Go.
- [Mission Control] Control. - [Man] Go.
- [Mission Control] TELCOMM. - [Man] Go.
- [Mission Control] G. - [Man] Go.
- [Mission Control] G-CM. - [Man] Go.
- [Mission Control] Surgeon. - [Man] Go.
- [Man] We are go for launch.
we're go.
- [Man] 20 seconds and counting.
- [Pilot],000 feet, 2,000 feet
- [Mission Control] T-minus 15 seconds.
Guidance is internal.
12, 11, 10, 9.
Ignition sequence start.
[dramatic music] Six, five, four, three, two, one.
[Saturn rocket engine roars]
[metal clangs]
♪
[cameras clicking]
♪
[separation charge explodes]
- [Armstrong] That's one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.
[indistinct radio chatter]
♪
- [man] Did you open up?
[rocket engine roars]
♪
- [Shatner] Space, the final frontier.
[crowd cheers]
- Nichelle Nichols is just absolutely fantastic.
- One of my reasons for going to MegaCon
was to see Nichelle.
- Because, let's face it,
a woman with a title in charge is pretty cool.
- That's the thing.
That's what's so great about Lieutenant Uhura.
- She was my favorite character from the show.
- When you meet Nichelle, it's like meeting a queen.
Still gorgeous, still has so much presence.
And, uh, she--her line was longer than mine.
I was like, "Okay, Nichelle."
- For most of the world, you know,
Nichelle Nichols is Lieutenant Uhura,
pop culture icon.
But what they don't know is that
she changed the space program forever.
♪
- We owe a great debt of gratitude to Nichelle Nichols,
not just through her acting,
but it was what she personally chose to do.
- I loved Uhura on Star Trek,
but I wasn't aware of everything that she did off the screen.
- I think it's one of the most fantastic stories
to be told to the American people.
[film reel clicking]
[tone beeps]
- [Miles] Well, uh, thanks for being you, number one.
We'd love to hear how you went from Star Trek to NASA
and the things you did with them.
- Hmm.
I guess it's sort of like going from fantasy to fact
and then wondering which is the fantasy
and which is the fact.
So this gets sort of schizophrenic, you see. [laughs]
[laughing]
[chuckles]
We're about to shoot, okay?
♪
I'm from Chicago, Illinois, born and raised.
[trolley bell rings]
I love Chicago.
It's more than a Midwestern town.
It's like a New York moved to the Midwest.
- Nichelle was born before World War II,
before Jackie Robinson,
before the armed forces were integrated,
a time of great segregation in America.
- [Nichols] My father is Samuel L. Nichols,
and he was from a well-to-do family.
And my mother was not going to marry my father
because...were not of the same class,
and my father was determined to marry my mother.
And thank God he did
because together, they had six children, and I'm one.
And I was my father's pet,
so nobody would ever not know that [laughs]
who my father was, because he was always saying,
"This is my daughter.
She's going to grow up to be a star."
I took ballet from the time I was a young girl.
I was determined to be the first black ballerina.
The class that I went to,
I think I was the only African American in the class.
♪
I grew up believing that I could become
anything that I wanted to be.
And of course, my father told me that
from the time I was a child.
And my mother used to say, "Sam, Samuel,
please don't put those ideas in that child's brain."
And he said, "She's going to be what she's going to be."
And he said, "Remember when they told you, Lisha,
don't marry Samuel Nichols?" [laughs]
[crowd applauds]
- Most people don't know that she started out
as a dancer and a singer.
- [Nichols] I love musical theater.
So dance was now just a component
of singing, dancing, acting.
And I discovered that I had this very strange voice
because I could sing high soprano.
And I had this nice low voice and I could [vocalizes],
and I could sing down here,
♪ Moaning low
[laughs]
I had my first professional job
when I was 14 years old in Chicago
at the um, downtown at the Sherman House.
When all of the great talent came,
they played the Sherman House.
It was the only hotel
that allowed black people to come and--and stay.
I was fortunate and honored
to meet so many great performers then.
Without question, however,
the highlight was meeting the great Duke Ellington.
♪
He was performing at the Chicago Theater
and asked the publicist to find me.
And he was looking for someone like me, evidently,
but older, so I got older. [laughs]
[camera shutter clicking]
He gulped, looked me straight in the face and said,
"Well, that's just about the range we're looking for."
He wanted me to perform a ballet to one of his suites.
So I got two guys and we did this fantastic ballet.
Every night, I used to go stand in the--in the curtain
just before I went on and watch this tall willowy gal,
who was the band singer, sing
and the way she wrapped herself around the microphone.
I was just in awe.
♪
Towards the end of the tour, which was about three months,
Mr. Ellington called me to his dressing room
and he said, "Sing something for me."
And I looked at him and I said, "Sing what?"
And he said, "Well, you can sing, can't you?"
He said, "You've still got that little gold dress
that you wore before we left?"
And I said, "Oh, yes, I've even got the gold shoes."
And he said, "Great.
You go on tonight."
♪
I said, "Do what?"
And he says, "The singer's sick.
She had to leave the band.
She's not going to finish the tour.
You are."
I've never been so scared in my life,
but I was determined to never show it.
And so I went on [vocalizes]
and I would get wonderful applause,
but I noticed that the band was kind of going[snorts].
And Duke Ellington is actually playing piano for me.
His back is kind of sideway-- to the audience,
and he tried not to show it.
He finally comes to me and said,
"What are you doing with that microphone?"
And I said, "I'm...
singing."
He said, "The gal-- last gal who did that
was twice as tall as you.
And the only reason she hung on to that mic
is because she would have fallen down."
He says, "You don't need to hug the mic
"and [laughs] and do all of those gyrations.
You've got a voice.
Now, just sing. Do your thing."
And that's when I first learned not to be like anybody else,
to be yourself.
And it was the greatest thing that ever happened.
♪
I was booked in Hawaii, and I was so excited.
But at that time, you couldn't fly from Chicago to Hawaii.
You had to come to Los Angeles, and that changed my life.
[airplane engine roaring]
While I went to Hawaii and loved Hawaii,
I couldn't wait to get back to California.
I thought it was the most beautiful place.
I wound up, of course, moving to Los Angeles.
I found acting was something that I loved and wanted to do
and began to excel at.
♪
- Gene Roddenberry had a TV show calledThe Lieutenant,
and he did an episode that centered on race
that Nichelle was actually in.
- [Nichols] The Lieutenant was my first role on television,
and it was a wonderful role.
Hey, guess what.
- Hmm?
- I found a job already.
- At the county?
- It's not that easy.
- [Nichols] I was so new to the business
that when the director told me
to step into my key light, I didn't know where to turn.
I thought after a few years,
a person would start to grow a little.
- [Nichols] Working in television
was not that pleasurable for me.
It's a wonderful medium,
but it really throws a-a-a theater actor,
a performer at first.
♪
Oh, Ernie.
- [Nichols] We were shooting at night,
and this person kept hovering over me.
And I said, "Look, you," and then I noticed
that this guy was smoking with a cigarette between--
- [Interviewer] A-ha. - ...his finger.
And I'd only seen one other person do that.
And I turned around and said, "Look, you!
[gasps] Mr. Roddenberry!" [laughs]
It was this one. [laughs]
♪
- I became essentially who I became
through Gene Roddenberry.
♪
He, I--I guess you could say, discovered me.
It--it was meant to be.
And we knew that from day one
because he talked exactly like my father.
- [Crump] Because that episode centered on race
was so controversial, they didn't actually air it.
♪
[indistinct shouting]
That so aggravated Gene Roddenberry
that he decided he would figure out how to tell
those types of stories in a different way.
[keys clacking]
- [Nichols] On several occasions, Gene remarked,
"I've got something in mind
that I think is going to come about.
And if it does,
there'll be something important in it for you."
I always knew that where he was going
was going to be fresh and new and exciting but enlightening.
He was brilliant in that way.
He loved to talk politics with me.
[telephone rings]
We talked and talked and talked.
- [Gene on phone] ...world of the future portrayed--
- [Nichols] I remember him talking about something
that had people of all races.
And I said, "Cool. That's a--let me know.
You know, that's...that's what I'm talking about here."
♪
I'd just finished a marvelous engagement in London
and gone on to Paris
when a couple of telegrams found me.
"Come home immediately," my agent had wired.
"They're doingStar Trek ."
"Star what?" I wondered.
When I went to read for the part, it was very funny.
They had not written Uhura, she was not named.
They said, "Would you be so kind
as to read the role of Spock?"
And I said, "Well, tell me something about this character.
What is she like?"
And they stopped and looked at me.
And so the director said,
"No, no, no, you won't be playing Spock.
Spock is a man."
Could it be a woman?
And they said, "Yes,
but Leonard Nimoy would not like it."
And I said, "Fine, but tell me about Spock,
because you can't tell me
about the female communications officer
'cause you haven't created her yet."
And they looked at me like, you know,
like the dog looks at you. [laughs]
You know, every time you see a little doggy
and talk to him, he goes. [laughs]
And the next thing I know, I'm reading for it.
And I get to the bottom of the page.
Finally, Joe Sargent, who was the director, said,
"Come on, big talent.
Let's go to lunch.
You had it when you walked in the door."
I had a big book when I came in.
It was calledUhuru,
and"Uhuru" is Swahili for freedom.
Gene asked to see me and he said,
"I really liked this, the book you brought in.
But what I really am interested in is the name,
Uhuru."
He says, "I want to do something with it that involves you."
I said, "Well, why don't you do an alliteration of it
and soften the end with an A and it'll be Uhura."
And I named the character.
[chuckles]
♪
- Gene Roddenberry was an enormously gifted storyteller.
He used science fiction as a metaphor
for the realities of the time.
- That was one of the core things
that Gene Roddenberry wanted to have in the show,
was more diversity, more cooperation,
a positive, exciting view of the future.
- My father looked at life
I think the way we should all look at life,
which is to embrace the diversity
whether it's in physical feature and form
or thought, idea.
- The concept of Star Trek
is--is--is quite extraordinary and unprecedented.
I can't think of anything
that has had that kind of lifespan.
- The fact that it was set in a distant time and place
gave it access to the present
in a way storytelling of the present would not.
- It was one of the first mainstream science fiction shows
that really dealt with the issues
that we were dealing with at the time.
- Lokai is of an inferior breed.
- [Spock] The obvious visual evidence, Commissioner,
is that he is of the same breed as yourself.
- Are you blind, Commander Spock?
Look at me.
I am black on the right side.
Lokai is white on the right.
All of his people are white on the right side.
- When I started watching Star Trek
was right at the beginning,
show one, year--year one.
I saw it, and I watched every episode.
- I couldn't believe the diversity
that was on the bridge at the time.
- [Takei] North America represented by the Captain.
Europe represented by a Scottish engineer,
Asia represented by my character.
But we also saw another part of the world
that rarely gets represented in that kind of mix,
Africa represented by an African woman.
- Nichelle at that time
was one of the faces that we had to see.
- The world got to see that like our women are strong, yes,
but they're also smart.
- She was the best person for that job.
And it didn't matter if she was male or female.
- [electricity zapping] - Progress report.
- Mr. Spock, I haven't done anything like this in years.
If it isn't done just right,
I could blow the entire communications system.
It's very delicate work, sir.
- I can think of no one
better equipped to handle it, Miss Uhura.
[chuckles]
Any time Uhura got to get off the bridge. [laughs]
- I submitted several episodes,
and they bought one for
the second season.
♪
The great part about it
was that I got to meet Nichelle before I got to script.
And she was wearing that incredible
two-piece bikini outfit,
from "Mirror, Mirror" episode.
So I got to see much more of Nichelle
than I ever expected to.
My God, that woman was the most beautiful woman
I had ever been in the presence of.
And, you know, here's this awkward geeky kid,
still in college and very nerdy.
And I come into the presence of this incredibly beautiful,
talented woman, and I was just heart-stopping speechless.
- Nichelle Nichols had that effect on people.
- Personally, when I saw Nichelle on the show, I got,
yeah, I could date a woman like that.
- Lieutenant Uhura, I was in love with.
She was a knockout.
- [beeping] - Actresses for 2,000.
- [Trebek] In the 1968 episode,
"Plato's Stepchildren,"
she went where few women
had gone before,
one of TV's first interracial kisses.
Margie. - Who is Nichelle Nichols?
- [Trebek] Yes! - [dings]
- That was still a time in television
where contact between people of different races
and different sexes was very controversial.
TV affiliates in the Southern states would react.
- They were stuck in that mind frame
um,
that "minorities" had to be
in a subservient position.
- This was a challenging time for people of color
trying to make their way in film and television.
There weren't a lot of roles.
- [Nichols] Uhura was a new kind of television woman.
Yet, it was becoming uncomfortably obvious
that whatever ambitious plans Gene had for my character,
Uhura's role was constantly being diminished.
Even in the enlightened 23rd century of Gene's imagination,
a strong, independent black woman was not welcome.
To me, it seemed there were always "female roles,"
but roles were male roles,
and then there were the "female roles."
Well, this was not a "female role,"
and I refused to treat it that way.
We're not just fancy little...
[chuckling] We are tough broads, you know.
We're human beings, and we come in all forms.
Directors tried to even change me,
make me more feminine, [laughs] make me--
- Would Uhura? [laughs]
- I tried often to write scenes for her.
Usually, I tried to make them
emotional, personal kinds of scenes
where there was some conflict going on
that the women had to resolve
or that they were strongly involved in.
- [Nichols] There were marvelous scripts.
And so you'd get it and you'd see this wonderful script
that involves you so well.
And then you'd get the revisions,
and then you'd get the pink revisions,
and then you'd get the orchid revisions,
and then you're down to--
Hailing frequencies open, sir.
Hailing frequencies, sir.
Hailing frequencies.
Hailing frequencies open, sir.
Hailing frequencies open.
- Lieutenant Uhura.
- Hailing frequencies still open, sir.
- And there's a legendary story about one day,
Nichelle turns to the camera and says,
"If I have to say 'open hailing frequencies' one more time,
I'm gonna blow up this console."
She was so frustrated with not getting to do more.
- Miss Uhura, your last subspace log
contained an error in the frequencies column.
- Mr. Spock, sometimes I think
if I hear that word "frequency" once more, I'll cry.
- The unfortunate part of it is that her role
seems to have been diminished because she was a black woman,
and that character was viewed as perhaps more expendable
than the other characters.
- I told them they were doing that.
And they said, "Oh no, this has nothing to do with you."
And I said, "You're not me.
It has everything to do with me."
- She was told that she was gonna be
more significant to this show than she was, you know.
We were the movable furniture to a great degree.
- She's the chief communications officer
and she can't talk?
What good is she?
And I said, "That's what they wanna do with the character,
I want out."
I didn't have all this
wonderful thought process going before.
I got a job.
I was an actress, got a job, right on, you know.
I thought my career would be in musical theater
until Star Trek interrupted my career.
And that's the way I looked at it.
And I'll have other opportunities
to grow in--in--with my talents,
you know, of singing and dancing.
And I'll go to Broadway,
and I'll do big pictures and that kind of thing.
Well, a funny thing happened on the way there.
- [Dawson] An NAACP event that was being held,
organizers of the event were trying to get her
to meet this fan, and she said, "Wait a minute.
I don't wanna meet fans right this minute."
- This person came up to me
and said he needed to talk to me.
[clears throat] And I said, "I'm sorry,"
and I turned around and I was looking in the face
of Dr. Martin Luther King.
[laughs]
- And what's typical about Nichelle
when she meets celebrities of all types,
um, they want to tell her about how she affected their life.
Dr. King was telling her Star Trekis the only show
that he lets his children watch.
- It was always a wonderful experience because
Dad did not have a lot of time
to actually watch anything with us because he was so engaged
in civil and human rights campaigns and the struggle.
But I guess, in retrospect, it was important to him,
but it certainly was important to us
to have time with our dad.
- She then says to him,
"Well, I'm so glad you feel this way."
And you know, "I'll be going off into another career move."
And he's stunned.
He says, "What do you mean?"
She said, "Well, I just turned in my resignation."
Dr. King says, "No, you can't.
You can't leave."
- And my first thought was, "What are you talkin' 'bout,
Dr. Martin Luther?" [laughs]
He's gonna tell me how to run my life now.
- She says, "Well, the work I'm doing
is I'm just delivering a line or two in each show.
I'm really not using my craft to any great extent."
- He said, "You don't understand
the effect that you are having, not only on black people,
not only on young women, but on everybody.
Everybody's mind and attitude is changed immeasurably
simply because you are there."
- Lieutenant Uhura was the most important person on the bridge
because she was the only one who could say--
- Captain.
- ...and everybody would stop what they were doing
and turn around to hear what she was gonna say next.
- But also because she appealed to us
by making us understand that we were going to be present
in whatever future was being imagined.
- I was a little boy at that time,
and it was at a time where,
my mother was from the South.
I was from the North.
They could just barely get to the front of the bus then.
And that's what Dr. King was saying
because he could see where it was going.
- "You're looked up to, and you're a role model,
and people aspire to be you,
that person that they see on television.
So don't leave, don't go away.
You stay right where you are."
He was a man of such wisdom.
And when he made a statement like that,
he had a good reason for doing it.
- And it's the first time
that I really talked to anyone important
about what was going on.
It was equally as important
as anything I could possibly have done.
So I stayed, and I never regretted it.
Uhura and I...
became friends.
It was the character that I had the blessing to create
and never failed me.
[doors whirring]
[electronics beeping]
And the show only went two more seasons,
and then we were gone.
In show business, everything ends sooner or later,
you learn to say goodbye and look to the future.
After all, you never know what's around the corner.
- [Miles] How did they sort of notify you of
your introduction to NASA? Did--
- Well, again, Star Trek had a little bit to do with that.
The--the response to it going off the air
was unbelievable.
- Rumors that it was going off the air
brought more than one million letters
of outraged fan mail to NBC.
- [Reporter] The universe it created was self-consistent,
imaginative, and makes its viewers long to be part of it,
and they didn't want to see it come to an end.
[crowd cheering]
♪
- Some of the most incredible people on the planet
are Star Trek fans.
[crowd cheers]
Fans started holding Star Trek conventions.
- Oh, I am a Denebian slime devil.
- I'm Ambassador X from Ecosystem Four.
- I think it's the extreme logic of the characters.
- I was one of the fans waiting in line
for an autograph or a photo or something.
If you were a science and a science fiction geek
and Star Trekperson, this was where you wanted to be.
- It's just the happiest day of my entire life.
Like, it's just so beautiful.
[sobbing] I can't help it.
- [Nichols] But in '75, I was invited to go to Chicago
to what turned out to be
the largest Star Trek convention ever.
- By the '75 convention, it was a full-fledged movement.
- It was also the first time that NASA had seen fit
to allow one of their scientists
to come as a speaker.
The day before the convention was to begin,
we held a press conference.
I noticed a tall, handsome,
white-haired gentleman on our panel.
I discovered he was Dr. Jesco von Puttkamer,
NASA's Director of Science.
And the press asks this scientist,
"Dr. von Puttkamer, I mean, this is fantasy.
What's a man of your stature doing here?"
So Dr. von Puttkamer said, and he's this tall man
with a shock of white hair and mustache, you know,
and he looks down the way and he says,
"Well, I tell you,
aside from the dream that Gene Roddenberry had
that put all humankind in the future,
I came for something more important than that."
He said, "I came because I had to find out
if Lieutenant Uhura had the most beautiful legs
that I think she has on the screen."
And of course, the press sat there and looked at him.
And we all on the panel are going, "What did he say?"
I said, "What did he say about Uhura?" [laughs]
And I was cinched.
I said, "I've got to meet that person."
- Jesco von Puttkamer was a charismatic advocate
for space flight and a wonderful voice
for what NASA was doing.
- When he and Nichelle first got together,
uh, I think that was a kind of a natural partnership,
a mentorship and a partnership.
- [Nichols] I sat through
Dr. von Puttkamer's presentation
in utter awe.
♪
I saw all of this wondrousness.
♪
I remember something happening back then saying
humankind stepped on the moon.
It wasn't just Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
I stepped on the moon.
And I sat there thrilled and impressed
as I watched the presentation
of where we had gone as human beings.
And I didn't see me.
And out of that awe and out of that thrill
came a feeling of disenfranchisement.
I did not see myself in the present space program.
I didn't see myself as a black,
and I didn't see myself as a woman.
Here I was involved in projecting a future
of what our space program, could--where it could take us.
And I wanted to be there, not in fantasy,
not 300 years from today, but now.
- Oh, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut,
but NASA said that women weren't being considered
for the job.
- The Russians already had women in space.
When is America gonna put a woman in space?
When is American gonna put a black person in space?
- The argument was made
uh, by the National Institute of Sciences and in the mid-'70s
that there were no qualified black people.
- I resented that
and decided I was gonna do something about it.
I started writing about it,
and they got printed in Ebony,
and they got printed in various magazines and newspapers.
And suddenly media, the press wanted to interview me
because as you have probably noticed,
I have a lot to say. [laughs]
In early 1977, I was appointed to the board of directors
of the National Space Institute.
That January, I gave a speech before NSI's
annual joint board council meeting.
I was talking before two or 3,000 people it felt like,
but it was a huge audience.
- She looked out in the audience
and there were very few women
and probably no people of color.
- There were scientists there.
There were NASA officials there.
And the call went out.
- [Nichols] I challenged everyone
to answer the question,
space, what's in it for me?
And I was not talking about becoming an astronaut.
I was talking about if those guys are doing it,
then we're supposed to be there.
Then where are we?
- And she's saying, "Where are my people?"
- Where are my people?
And I meant that then, and I mean it now.
- [Dr. Joels] That was the spark
that caused NASA to say,
"Okay, you've got a good point.
How do we go about this?"
- Well, coming out of that, I was invited to Washington
to meet the administrator of NASA.
He said, "We were in the audience, listening to you.
So was the director."
Suddenly, I'm at NASA headquarters,
and I'm seeing women
and men in every level,
from administration and management.
I was fascinated.
And I said to them, "Why doesn't your public know this?"
- NASA was in a huge period of transition.
- [Narrator] As the last Apollo crew
worked on the moon,
the engineers on earth
prepared for tomorrow's day in space.
- [Dr. Joels] They had already done the Skylab missions.
Apollo-Soyuz flew in 1975,
and then the Apollo mission was over.
The country was engaged in a lot of economic dislocation.
You had a lot of people that were downsized
after the Apollo program.
Now, they were entering the shuttle era
and we need talent.
- I have a model here of the space shuttle.
- [Dr. Weitekamp] In the 1970s,
NASA needed to recruit
a new class of astronauts for the space shuttle program,
and this would be a very different class
than had been previously recruited.
- The Astronaut Corps was really kind of the all boys club.
It was all white, Anglo Saxon male.
They all have come out of test pilot school.
- [Dr. Weitekamp] For the shuttle program,
this was a new vehicle
that allowed new kinds of work,
which meant that they wanted not only pilot astronauts
but mission specialists,
people with PhDs, medical degrees,
researchers who would be doing the experiments
on the vehicle.
And NASA, when they started looking into
the application pile,
realized that they were dealing with a legacy
of historic discrimination.
- They were not getting the response that they wanted.
And they said this was already eight months underway
and they only had four more months.
And they said, "We're not going to have any black people.
We're not gonna have any women
because no one's responding.
Why?"
And I said, "We don't believe you."
- [Lewis] During the '60s, to be able to ride
and take a seat on a-- on a bus, any place on a bus,
we would be beaten, arrested, and jailed.
[indistinct shouting]
- [Capt. Scott] I could remember days of--
of blatant racism.
And going into the drugstore one day
and buying an ice cream cone and a comic book,
and a lady came out from behind the counter and said,
"You can't sit here.
You have to get up and leave."
I remember just turning around to walk out of the store
and she yelled at me, "That's the best thing you can do.
Just get outta here!"
- [Maj. Bolden] Walking into the Naval Academy,
a place where I had wanted so badly to go from seventh grade
when I first saw the program Men of Annapolis
and getting in there in Plebe Summer, calling home,
crying to my mom and dad saying, "I made a bi--
I made a big mistake. I wanna come home."
And my--they would ask me, they said,
"But you've always wanted to go there."
I said, "Yeah, but they don't want me here.
And I don't wanna be here."
Those are the kinds of things that I remember.
- [Funk] I applied to NASA four different times
to be turned down four different times
because NASA reorganized their nomenclature, so to speak,
that you had to have jet test pilot time.
This was impossible for a girl to have in those days.
Now, let's go back to the men, the Mercury.
There were 159 men selected from the armed services
to go through these tests at Lovelace.
How many passed?
Seven.
25 women were selected and how many passed?
Thirteen.
We could have done it if they would just let us.
- They said, "How can we get people to apply?
How can we correct that?"
And I said, "I think you need to get someone immediately
with credibility and high visibility
whom they would believe when they speak.
They know that they would not talk to them
if NASA was not serious."
And NASA said,
"How about Lieutenant Uhura?"
♪
And I just laughed because I said,
"No, no, people might think it's a gimmick."
Oh, I said, "Don't, not me.
They'll laugh at you."
And they said, "Not if they hear you speak five minutes."
- One of the things that Nichelle was very keen on
is she did not want to be seen
as like an assistant or a mascot of NASA.
She didn't want NASA people around her
when she was out there recruiting.
- I cannot have a NASA representative taking me around
and...and propping me up with a prepared speech.
I won't do that.
And I said, "I will accept it,
but I'll do it under my company, Women in Motion,
and I'll be your PI."
Women in Motion was a company that I began
when I wanted to make a difference.
- It became the vehicle for this--this NASA contract.
- And I said,
"I will bring you so many qualified people,
you will have no choice.
And if I have done my work
and it's still an all-white male Astronaut Corps,
I will be your worst nightmare
because I will file a class action lawsuit against you.
I will go and...and speak before Congress
and I will expose what... what I have done."
And Dr. Fletcher gave me his hand
and he said, "And I'll go with you."
And John Yardley said,
"And so shall I."
♪
And on that basis, I, for the next four months,
'cause we only had four months left,
I completely stopped my career, canceled all engagements
and set up a grueling schedule.
- [Dawson] There was a good old boy attitude within NASA
that we know what's best, and we'll--we'll do the hiring,
thank you very much.
- Some of them shared with me the fact that, you know,
when this Hollywood star walked in,
they really were not inclined to initially take it seriously
until they started talkingr.
- I needed some astronaut training
to know what I was talking about to astronauts, you know.
And when I said that first to them,
they kind of went like... [chuckles]
♪
Astronaut Alan Bean has agreed to show me
some of the training and evaluation
that new astronaut candidates will be undergoing.
♪
[laughs]
- Why don't you take the commander's seat over there.
- All right. -You can handle it.
I get to be a captain at last. [laughs]
- [Dawson] She was able to land
this space shuttle orbiter simulator.
Later on, I asked, "How did you do that?"
"Oh, you know, it wasn't me.
It was Uhura that did it." [chuckles]
♪
- [Nichols] The credibility, of course,
in minority community
has been very low.
Uh, I'm sure that they-- - The--our--NASA's credibility?
- NASA's credibility.
How do you feel about--
- Well, first, I'm kinda--
- A woman coming on board.
- I think that's a good idea. - [laughs]
- But I think if they think they got any kind of chance,
you know, they should apply, definitely.
- [Nichols] I think the problem is that
most people just don't think it means them this time.
- It does mean them.
- Once she got NASA to accept the fact
that they needed to have people of color,
she faced the battle of going out and convincing
qualified young men and women of color
that--that they would find a place, a welcome place,
if they chose to apply.
♪
- I went to every university that I could get to.
I went to every woman's organization,
every professional science organization,
organization of black engineers and scientists.
I went to LULAC.
I went to the Asian community.
I went to the Spanish-American community.
I went to the black community.
I went to the Organization of Black Pilots.
And fortunately, many of these people
were having their annual conventions at that time,
and many had admitted that they allowed me to come
because I was Uhura,
but they finished up because I was Nichelle Nichols
speaking for our space program.
♪ Show me, I say
- I think that's the perseverance
that Nichelle showed in going around,
being willing to go into the deep South
and try to recruit.
- I went to a university where they were livid with me.
They wanted to hurt me, and they told me that.
And I said, "That's fine."
I said, "Let's stay civil.
But I'm not here to convince you.
I'm here to find that one person who'll take a chance."
Many of them said, "NASA is using you, Ms. Nichols."
And I said, "I know, and I'm using them.
Now, I'm gonna use you."
- Nichelle's personal mission
uh, was to help these people understand
that NASA needed them.
♪
- Hello, this is Nichelle Nichols.
NASA needs astronaut pilots and mission specialists
for the space shuttle that becomes operational
in the 1980s.
These people wrote me and said
they would have never thought they qualified
until they heard me speak or saw me on television.
In every city that I visited, we contacted the media.
I went on tel-- on every talk show.
Then I'd might go on and they'd wanna talk about my career,
and I said, "Thank you so much
because my career is so important to me.
It has taken an incredible turn."
"Oh, what are you doing now?"
"I'm helping NASA recruit the first women
and minority astronauts for the space shuttle program."
And they'd go, [laughs]
I said, "No, it's not funny. It's true."
Even the network stations, many of them
played my--my public service announcements in primetime
because they had Uhura, you know.
- Nichelle Nichols came on TV one day,
and I'm just sitting there watching her.
And she was in a blue flight suit.
- Hi, I'm Nichelle Nichols.
- And she pointed at me and she said,
"I want you to join the astronaut program."
- This is your NASA.
- And immediately, I knew she was talking to me.
Other people have claimed she was talking to them.
No, she was talking to me.
- When various men and women
heard me on a--a television talk show
in which I spoke about
the military recruitment and the civilian recruitment,
you see, the military had their own recruitment drive
for NASA and eliminated people
and then gave NASA their selection.
They invited me to the Pentagon
when I first took on the contract
to let me know they didn't want me interfering
with the military recruitment.
They didn't want me out recruiting military,
so I didn't.
- They made it quite clear to her
that they had their ways of picking astronauts
and they wanted her to stay out of their way.
But she found a loophole.
- [Nichols] Just as I was about to leave, I said,
"Oh, if you have your own recruitment
and your own selection,
what about the men and women who aren't selected by you?
Would they be able to apply directly to NASA
as American citizens?"
And they went, "Yes." [laughs]
So everywhere I went, I simply talked about that.
- And Fred kind of pulled an end run and applied
through NASA as a civilian.
- And I got a call from General Tom Stafford.
And I remember his-- the first words he said,
he said, "Who the hell are you?"
And I said, "Well, sir, I'm... [laughs]
I'm Major Fred Gregory." [laughs]
And I mean, I never met the man in life.
He said, "But why did you apply as a civilian?"
I said, "Because if I had been in the Air Force
and I'm in the selection committee,
I probably would not have selected me
because I was an unknown."
He says, "Well, that's all I wanted to know,"
and that was the end of the conversation. [laughs]
- [laughs] Fun, huh? [laughs]
- During the recruitment process,
NASA public affairs pulled out all the stops
trying to get Nichelle exposure, and the crown jewel of that
was an appearance on Good Morning America.
♪
- Recently, I had an opportunity to do something
that very few people have-- get the chance to do.
A week or so ago,
I visited the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
in Houston, Texas.
And one of the people that I met there
was Nichelle Nichols,
a star of television series, Star Trek.
Over the last few years, Ms. Nichols has gone
from science fiction to science fact.
why did you choose to become involved
in the NASA space program?
- Well, Sandy, a couple of years ago, a friend of mine and I
formed a company called Women in Motion.
And all of the things that I had talked with them about,
about the potential, they included
about why women should apply,
why minorities should apply.
I think it's very important
that at this selection for astronauts status,
of having a woman astronaut
and a completely integrated Astronaut Corps.
The old Star Trek idea,
I see infinite diversity and infinite combinations.
- And June 30th is the last day
for women and other minorities to apply for the program.
- I was sitting in my office at NASA
and I got a call from Nichelle
and she said, "Kerry, I just found out
we're supposed to do a final report.
What is a final report?" [chuckles]
So I said, "When is this due?"
She said, "In a week." [chuckles]
I said, "Okay."
She said, "Can you come and help?"
I said, "Sure."
[keys clacking]
This was an era of typewriters and Xerox machines.
So we were literally having to type the report
and take all the photographs and the documents.
And they weren't in emails
where you could cut and paste them.
You actually had to physically Xerox them and stack them.
It was very labor intensive.
I could tell that she was driving really, really hard.
She was doing media constantly.
She was traveling constantly.
And she was doing presentations constantly.
It was an incredible grind.
I [scoffs] I went to sleep at two in the morning.
She got me up at five, took me to the airport,
and I was back at my desk at eight.
I realized, from a historical perspective,
this was gonna be important.
[printer whirring]
They finished it.
They got it in.
I think she didn't know
how it would turn out at that point.
- [Dr. Bluford] I was a kid
out of the inner city of Philadelphia,
Air Force officer who wanted to be an aerospace engineer.
January of '78, I was driving to work,
and I heard on the radio
that NASA had selected 35 astronauts.
I was curious at who those people were, you know.
- [Maj. Gregory] I was a pilot
and enjoyed flying airplanes a lot.
And that's the reason I was interested
in the space shuttle program, because it had a wing on it.
- [Dr. Bluford] So I got to work.
And I was probably in the office maybe an hour or so
when I got this call from this strange guy.
[phone rings]
- And I thought, "Oh my goodness, okay.
This is the, you know, this is the call." [laughs]
Mr. Abbi gets on the phone and he says, "Fred."
I said, "Yes, sir."
He says,
"You're still interested in this job down here?"
I said, "Yes." [laughs]
And he says, "You've--okay, you've been selected
to be in this first class,
but you can't tell anybody until noon."
And this was like 7:30 in the morning.
I think I kept my word for five minutes.
And I... [laughs]
- [Nichols] One day, on television,
it came on as news.
- [Reporter] 35 people were ultimately chosen
to become astronauts.
- [Nichols] They mentioned my name,
and my son came running to me
and said, "Mom, Mom, come quick!
Your--your people are on television."
And I said, "Wha--?" I think he's talking about my TV show.
And I said, "Of course we're on TV, darling."
He says, "No, no, no!
Uh, uh. Your people that go up." [laughs]
And I came running, and I saw and there they were.
[camera shutter clicking]
Well, this might sound a little corny,
but it felt like my children.
And my heart, it pounded,
and I knew the world will never be the same again.
We would go on to great heights.
And to think that...
I had the slightest thing to do with it...
♪
[sighs]
makes me know that all things good are possible.
♪
- In '78, we got together for the first time
in February of '78.
- When I saw the picture of us, to me, that looked like
a very representative group of Americans.
And so from my point of view,
I saw brothers and sisters up there on that platform.
- We had six women.
I got to meet Fred Gregory, and I got to meet Ron McNair.
- Ron was actually impressed and--and encouraged
to come into the space program
due to the work that Nichelle did
in traveling around the country
and trying to help recruit for NASA.
The difference that Nichelle played
was the fact that she--she helped to make it real,
to make it a true possibility for him.
- [McNair] Times have changed to the point where a black man
can enter areas that were heretofore,
some sorta--you might say, prohibited.
- [Interviewer] Do you feel that three is an adequate number
at this point in time?
- Well, certainly, I don't feel three is adequate.
I think as many as you can get in, but a three is a start.
Let's do it.
- The first United States space shuttle was rolled out today
from Palmdale, California, in the Mojave Desert.
- [Announcer] President Ford may indeed be a fan
of the showStar Trek.
When he was asked to approve
the name of the first American space shuttle craft,
the President chose the name The Enterprise.
- That was the first time the crew
was actually sort of featured along with NASA
in--in--in a public story.
- We were absolutely thrilled.
There was the band there, and they started to play a tune.
♪
It was the opening tune from the Star TrekTV series.
- And around a corner, a truck came into view
and it was towing this huge, enormous thing
that I had never seen the likes of which before.
And across the nose of the ship, it said Enterprise.
And we just burst into cheers.
I think we came close to tears, actually.
- It was an exciting
and deeply, profoundly moving experience for us.
- [Koenig] We felt like, goodness,
we really are a part of something that is real,
that is important, that is not science fiction alone.
♪
- [man] Incoming.
- [man 2] Doors opened and they're all down. Comin' down.
Touchdown here.
[indistinct radio chatter]
Four, three, two, drop.
- [man 3] Hey, that was great.
♪
[lights thunking]
- [Maj. Gregory] I was part of the launch team
for the first launch.
- [man] T minus ten, nine, eight, seven,
six, five, four.
Go for main engine start.
[engines roaring]
[birds squawking]
- [Maj. Gregory] We were all used to Saturns.
And I can remember when the shuttle came out of the cloud
for the first time, it was so short and stubby
that I thought maybe the real one was gonna come back up
and come out later.
♪
- And after we got through maybe STS two or three,
there was a lot of pressure going on
as to when are you gonna fly the first woman in space.
- Well, you helped bring the women into the program then.
What--how do you feel they're going to do in this man's world?
- I think it's not a man's world.
- [Announcer] The six women astronauts chosen
were Dr. Sally Ride, Dr. Judith Resnik,
Dr. Kathy Sullivan, Anna Fisher, Rhea Seddon,
and Dr. Shannon Lucid.
- I wanna get up as soon as I can.
So that means that I'd like to be the first woman up.
- How does it feel to realize
that you are going to become
a footnote in history
and a trivia question subject forever?
- Gosh, that's quite an honor.
I was, I have to admit, not prepared
for all the attention that I received.
- Please welcome Sally Ride.
- Sally Ride's flight aboard STS-7 in 1983
uh, was a moment where there were people lined up
across Florida highways and around Kennedy Space Center
with signs that said, "Ride Sally Ride."
♪
[engines roaring]
- John Young, head of the astronaut office,
came up and said, "Hey, George wants to talk to you.
Go over to his office at 10:30."
I sort of said to myself,
"Oh, I wonder what I did wrong," you know.
And we were waiting outside his office, and
we all came in and we sat down around his table.
And George said, in a very humbling way,
"You know, I need somebody to fly on STS-8.
Do you wanna, do you guys wanna fly for STS-8?"
Yeah!
♪
- The flights of those as the firsts
were both moments of extraordinary pressure
on the individual who had the burden and the opportunity
of being the first to do something so significant,
um, but they were also, I think,
met with a lot of public enthusiasm.
- [Dr. Bluford] Well, one, I was pleased
to be selected to be, uh, to fly on STS-8
and to recognize that I would be opening the doors
for other African Americans who would be flying in space.
- [Mission Control] Challenger,
the President is on the line.
- [Reagan] Guys, congratulations.
You, I think, are paving the way for many others,
and you're making it plain that
we are in an era of brotherhood.
I can't help but express my gratitude.
[crowd applauding]
- [Maj. Gregory] The press loved it.
"Well, what's it feel like being the only?
Well what's it feel like starting
or breaking the glass barrier?"
You could not have found a better selected group.
- My sister, Judy Resnik, was a scientist
and found the ultimate job as an astronaut,
being the second American woman to go into space.
Nichelle should be proud of what she did
in her part in recruiting Judy and others
because she gave them the opportunity
to do exactly what they wanted to do.
- [Dr. Joels] The importance
and the historical significance
of Nichelle's efforts with NASA
is probably best summarized
by the moment where she was given
the Public Service Award.
♪
It was Judy that actually
presented the medal to Nichelle.
And she and Judy were--were close.
And she always appreciated the fact
that they had stayed close after the recruitment.
- When I got in the Orbiter in the Challenger
from my first mission,
I was--went in there actually pretty cocky.
I would say that we were 90 to 95 percent aware of what it was
that we were gonna see and experience.
But they left out the five percent or 10 percent,
and that was the actual experience.
[engines roaring]
When the main engine started and we looked out the window
and the Orbiter tipped, we called it a plane,
and when it came back in zero and the solids ignited,
there was no doubt you were going someplace really fast.
And it shook and rattled
and I said it was something like
an old wooden rollercoaster.
And by this time, we are screaming.
At two minutes after liftoff,
those solid rockets have burned all of their fuel
and they have blown away from the tank.
And you see the flash through the windows,
and suddenly that rattle, that shake, rattle and roll,
goes into just a very, like an electric motor.
Now you're accelerating,
but you just begin to feel it in your chest,
and it just gets more and more.
At about a minute or so before main engine cutoff
and when you've reached orbital velocity,
you have a steady three Gs and everybody is going...
[panting]
At about eight and a half minutes, which is all the time
it takes to get to space, main engines cut off...
[ship clanking]
...and you go immediately from three Gs to zero Gs.
And your arms just float up like this,
and any debris just floats around like this.
And then you're in space.
And you look out the window for the first time
and you see the Earth beneath you,
this beautiful blue marble.
♪
You go around the world in a hour and a half,
every 90 minutes.
You know, your whole concept of neighbors changes, you know.
A neighbor that you walk to might take five minutes.
In five minutes, you're across the Atlantic Ocean.
Your concept of who a friend is, an enemy,
your concept of faith, all of these things change
when you have the privilege and honor
to do something like that.
And you know, from the political point of view,
I wish we could send politicians up there
and they realize that what we're talking about
is people in the world down here
as opposed to factions of this,
and I think it would have fantastic influence on them
as they make decisions.
It all makes sense when you-- when you look at it
from--from the space point.
So this was just my first, you know,
my--like my first five minutes on my first mission.
It just makes you come home and just go wow.
♪
- By the time we flew the 24th flight of the space shuttle,
Charlie, Franklin, and I were the rookies on that flight.
- [Reporter] Florida Congressman Bill Nelson
is the second congressional observer
to fly on the shuttle.
- It so happened that our CAPCOM was Fred Gregory.
So after four tries to get off the ground,
four scrubs over the better part of a month,
the first time that two shuttles were on the pad,
on the fifth try, we launched.
Eight and a half minutes later, we were in space.
The first words coming from Fred Gregory was,
"Welcome to space, rookies."
- [woman breathing heavily] - [birds chirping]
It's now just 10 days after we've returned to Earth.
A Challenger has been sitting on the other pad
because we were so late getting off the pad
with all of those scrubs.
- [woman breathing heavily] - [heart thumping]
- It was a cold day, end of January.
- [Reporter] Some of the icicles
which have built up on the--
- [Maj. Gregory] I was the lead CAPCOM.
Uh, the--all of the CAPCOMs work for me.
- I had a friend had come into town,
was staying at my house,
and I had gone for my morning walk.
[indistinct radio chatter]
- [Reporter] Countdown going very smoothly
here at the Kennedy Space Center.
Uh, all of the crew members
are onboard the Orbiter Challenger now.
♪
- [woman breathing heavily] - [heart thumping]
[machinery whirring]
- [man] T minus 10, nine, eight, seven, six.
We have main engine.
[engine roaring]
Four, three, two, one.
And liftoff.
Liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission
and it has cleared the tower.
- [Maj. Gregory] The Challenger lifted off.
Everything looked great.
After the 10-second rise,
the Orbiter rolls over on its back
and begins this--this trip out over the Atlantic Ocean.
And the commander of the mission will say,
"Roll program, Houston,"
and the CAPCOM will say, "Roger, roll."
So that's the first conversation that occurs
between mission control in Houston and the Orbiter.
- [Commander] Roll program.
- Roger, roll, Challenger.
- And then the next thing that occurs
is as we go through the speed of sound mach one,
the main engines throttle back.
But then when we get through mach one,
we'd go back to 100 percent and it's throttle up.
- [Mission Control] Challenger,
go with throttle up.
- And it was right after that, at 71 seconds, that suddenly...
[indistinct radio chatter]
[explosion]
...it disappeared.
♪
- [man] Flight controllers here looking very carefully
at the situation,
obviously a major malfunction.
- [Nichols] It was like part of your family,
hearing something happen
to a member of your-- your family.
[sighs]
Um...
And--and we have to deal with it.
Judy Resnik was...
I'm sorry.
♪
- [Interviewer] You wanna take a little break, Nichelle?
- I was thinking yes,
but we owe to Judy Resnik and her like kind
the blessing that God
meant for her.
[sobbing] I can't do it.
I'm sorry.
- [Interviewer] It's okay.
Stop. - [man] Stop.
- [Sen. Nelson] Everybody was gone.
It's still tough.
And I said to myself,
"Why were we spared?"
Because we had been through so many near misses.
- And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took
for the crew of the shuttle.
But they, the Challenger Seven,
were aware of the dangers
and overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly.
- Three of her recruits,
um, Ron McNair,
Ellison Onizuka,
and Judith Resnik,
um, all passed away in that one mission,
and that was a very painful experience for her
at that point.
- It caught everybody such by surprise
that it really kinda shook your faith
in human nature a little bit, in your ability
to actually do the things and command the things
and master the things that
you have to do for space flight.
- [man] Okay, everybody, start pulling it together.
- [Dr. Phillis] Because you think about your friends,
you know, I think about the conversation that I had
with my friend, Ron about,
"Hey, we're gonna form a business together."
And I used to jokingly say,
"Well, would it be Phillips McNair,
or would it be McNair Phillips?"
So who's the most important, you know.
We used to joke about that.
But I knew Ron's family and you think,
wow, you multiply that sense of loss
over the number of families that were affected.
When there are people involved, it gets tough.
♪
- [man] Ladies and gentlemen,
I'd like to introduce the Vice President, Mr. Bush.
- When George Bush came to visit us in the crew quarters--
- Thank you very much.
And I'm now gonna go pay my respects to the families.
- [Scobee Fulgham] My mom stepped forward and just said,
"Please don't let this end the space program
because this meant so much to our loved ones.
Please keep going."
- The crew of the space shuttle Challenger
honored us with the manner in which they lived their lives.
We will never forget them
nor the last time we saw them this morning
as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye
and slipped the surly bonds of earth
to touch the face of God.
Nothing ends here.
Our hopes and our journeys continue.
- There's a progression of shock and grief immediately.
And you have to get through that before you get on with,
okay, we're gonna fix it and get on with the program.
- I was privileged to have an opportunity
to go over to the safety division
at the Johnson Space Center
and become the Director of Safety.
And my primary responsibility was to oversee
the return to flight from a safety perspective.
And so that became my charge
for the next two years after the accident.
- I wanted--I made a commitment to the people on the Challenger
that I would, you know, stay there
to make sure that we returned to flight.
- I always have optimism
because I only know that if something is not right,
you can change it.
- Let's not kid ourselves
that there is no potential danger in this!
- Do you wish that the first Apollo mission
hadn't reached the moon, or that we hadn't gone on to Mars
and then to the nearest star?
Dr. McCoy is right
in pointing out the enormous danger potential.
But I must point out that the possibilities, the potential
for knowledge and advancement is equally great!
♪
Risk,
risk is our business.
That's what this starship is all about.
- [man] We are confident we will launch
and come back safely.
But there are no guarantees associated with that
and there can't be.
The only way you can guarantee that much safety
is to never launch.
[engines roaring]
- [Mission Control] We have main engine start.
Three, two, one.
- [man] We have liftoff!
Liftoff! America's return to space!
♪
- [man 2] Roger roll, Discovery.
[indistinct radio chatter]
- [Hauck] Today, up here where the blue sky
turns to black, we can say at long last,
dear friends, your spirit and your dream
are still alive in our hearts.
It sure does feel good to see
the Challenger mission continue
and America back in space.
♪
- [woman] Children, this is the Air and Space Museum.
Now, have a good time and use your imagination.
[children] ♪ Then I travel out in space
♪ Exploring the whole galaxy
- [Nichols] I have always been involved with young people,
and I've always been invited to talk to young people
about stay in school and this kind of thing.
Suddenly, I had something wonderful to talk to them about,
their future.
[beam whirring]
- Ms. Nichols has kept up,
over especially the last 10 or 20 years,
a busy and active schedule of outreach,
and she has had a wonderful relationship with NASA.
- I'm Nichelle Nichols.
I'm Nichelle Nichols.
♪
- [Dr. Ellenbogen] I've actually spent a lot of time
studying the evolution of science education
in the United States after Sputnik.
And to find out that Nichelle Nichols actually formed
one of the early companies, was the first woman
to run a STEM education company like that
in an era when there were so many things going on
to transform STEM education in the United States,
uh, that was a great shock to me.
[gasps]
♪
[beam whirring]
[crowd cheering]
- [Whoopi] How are you doing?
[speaks indistinctly]
- [Whoopi] Yeah, it's just me.
- You are--
- No, no, no, this is about you.
[crowd laughs]
Let's just talk about what you've done for women.
- [Col. Collins] Well, I can tell you a li--a little story.
The--the director of Johnson Space Center
called me up to his office, told me I was gonna be
the first woman space shuttle commander,
"The reason I'm talking to you
is the First Lady of the United States
would like to announce your mission
at the White House on Monday," which was three days away,
"Make some remarks from the White House," so. [chuckles]
- In December 1998, when the Shuttle Columbia takes off,
Colonel Eileen Collins will take one big step forward for women
and one giant leap for humanity.
[crowd applauds]
- Dr. Mae Jemison, the first woman African American
to become an astronaut,
directly credits Nichelle Nichols's campaign
with her decision to become an astronaut.
- I was very much a Star Trekfan.
And then to finish the whole story off and go full circle,
I appeared on Star Trek. [chuckles]
Phase distortion is dropping.
The next transport window opens in 42 seconds.
- I admired her so much.
And we fortunately became very, very good friends
and still are today.
- My mom and dad told me,
"One day, you too can be President of the United States."
I knew that was crap, uh, you know,
'cause I hadn't seen a--a black president.
And--and it was sort of like, okay, yeah, right.
I would have said no way in the world
I'm gonna be an astronaut, no way in the world
I will end up being the NASA administrator
appointed by a black president of the United States.
- Who turned out to be a fan. [laughs]
So it wasn't me trying to meet the President.
The President said,
"I'm in a position to meet anybody I want.
I wanna meet Nichelle Nichols."
And I was like, "Oh my God."
It was wonderful.
- I hope that people continue to thank Ms. Nichols
for helping African-Americans and for helping women
in their pursuits of what we would now call STEM fields.
- STEM stands for science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics.
It's a convenient moniker for something that is vital
to the future of the human race overall.
- Having men, women, different ethnicities
all as astronauts
and hearing about their journeys going to space
really made an impact on me as a little girl
and really taught me that it doesn't matter what,
whether you're male, female, or what race you are.
Anyone can go to space.
Space is for everyone.
- Today, I'm pleased to announce that NASA has selected
America's next generation of space explorers.
- Today, astronaut classes are more equally balanced,
and they include both women and men,
much like the diversity
on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.
♪
- [Nichols] I was at the last launching
of the space shuttle.
It's like visiting family.
They know you.
You know them.
You don't see your family all the time.
[laughter]
Being at a launch is like the rarest thing
that you can think of that you would enjoy the most.
- [Announcer] Two, one, zero, and liftoff!
The final liftoff of Atlantis.
[engines roaring]
♪
- [man] Houston now controlling
the flight of Atlantis.
The space shuttle spreads its wings one final time.
♪
- [Maj. Bolden] I have been with the shuttle
from almost its very first day.
And--and I can remember sitting with her a few times,
uh, sharing tears as we recognize the fact
that we were about to bring down the curtain
on something that had been absolutely incredible
in fulfilling a dream that she had
for making space available for all people.
[sonic booms]
♪
- [Announcer] Piercing the predawn sky
as the space shuttle announces its arrival at the launch site
with its signature sound of twin sonic booms.
The space shuttle pulls into port for the last time,
its voyage at an end.
- [Maj. Bolden] Everybody thinks about the space shuttle
as this incredible feat of technology.
I believe that the shuttle's legacy forever will be
the fact that it opened up the world of space exploration
in a way that I don't think many of us,
short of Nichelle Nichols, had dreamed.
- The space program will go on and on and on
because our space program is our future.
We haven't even begun to begin.
♪
- It's very easy to look along a path
that someone else has taken.
It's a very different thing
when you're trying to do it alone the very first time.
Without people like Nichelle Nichols,
a lot of us would not have been able to follow
those extraordinary footsteps.
- We can come together
and be what Dr. King called the beloved community.
We're one people.
We're one family.
We all must learn to live together
on this little piece of real estate we call Earth,
on this little planet.
- I think in the not-too-distant future,
things are really, really, really gonna change.
- What is a change in society?
A change is you cannot even imagine a world
any other way.
That's when you know you've really changed.
- Human mind power and the best of the best
is...is essential to the exploration of space.
- Space flight is for philosophical reasons.
It's for answering the big questions.
It's what's out there,
and what is humanity's place there.
- Space is not the final frontier.
The final frontier is the human soul.
Space is where we can meet the challenge.
- That's the mission.
It's up to the greatness in us.
Mindful of our fallibility
and with knowledge of that fallibility,
try to prepare for those issues to come up
as we push forward,
boldly go where no one has gone before.
- This is your NASA, a space agency embarked on a mission
to improve the quality of life on planet Earth right now.
- What a public service Nichelle rendered for this country.
- It is so inspiring for our sons and daughters
to learn from the examples of Nichelle Nichols
as a testament as to what one person can do
when they believe in the spirit of diversity
and the betterment for all of our children.
- All I can do is think of Nichelle Nichols
as a force of nature unto herself.
- Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura
has and will always be a woman in motion.
- She went into it to be an actress.
She ended up changing the world.
♪
- [Nichols] Long before they hired me,
I said if they let me in the door,
I will open it so wide, they will see the world.
And to know that I had really touched
the future by changing the present,
by just believing and being me
and saying we have-- we have lifted off
and we'll never be earth-bound again,
and suddenly, there I was, doing exactly what I fantasized.
It became a reality.
- [Miles] Whoo, cut.
[tone beeps]
♪
- [recording engineer] Nichelle Nichols,
"Fly Me to the Moon."
♪
♪ Fly me to the moon
♪ And let me play among the stars ♪
♪ Let me see what spring is like ♪
♪ On Jupiter and Mars
♪ In other words
♪ Hold my hand
♪ In other words
♪ Baby, kiss me
♪ Fill my heart with song
♪ And let me sing forevermore
♪ You are all I long for
♪ All I worship and adore
♪ In other words
♪ Please be true
♪ In other words
♪ I love you
♪ Bay-baby
♪ Ba ba boo dee
♪ Fill my heart with song
♪ Let me sing forevermore
♪ You are all I long for
♪ All I worship and adore
♪ In other words
♪ Please be true
♪ In other words
♪ Fill my heart with song
♪ And let me sing forevermore
♪ You are all I long for
♪ All I worship and adore
♪ In other words
♪ Please be true
♪ In other words
♪ I love you
♪ Hey, yeah
[laughs]
- [man over intercom] Wow. - [group cheering]
- [man 2 over intercom] Oh, that's gold!
[group applauds]
- [man over intercom] Whoo!
I'm gonna have you sing me to sleep tonight.
[laughter]
- Okay.
♪