Iconic Actress Nichelle Nichols Will Fly in NASA Mission

"Star Trek" actress Nichelle Nichols revealed that she’ll be flying in a NASA Observatory Mission this September during a Reddit AMA.

Although 82-year-old Nichols suffered a stroke early this year, she will be making history being one of two Black women to both fly in a NASA mission and star in "Star Trek."

On Reddit she explained, “I was on a similar flight, the first airborn observatory, back in 1977. It’s an amazing experience, you get a totally different perspective than from earth.”

Nichols shared these details on her blog:

I am honored to say that I will be among the first non-essential personnel to experience NASA’s newest telescope: SOFIA. On September 15th, I’ll board a special 747 with a very specially built telescope integrated into the fuselage, taking off at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center near Palmdale, California.

SOFIA is actually a second generation Airport Observatory. The first generation was the Keiper Airborne Observatory, flown in the mid 1970’s, which I also had the honor being able to fly on, and even operate the equipment.

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