NASA’s Nicole Aunapu Mann To Become First Indigenous Person In Space
NASA will send a new crew into space next month. And for the first time, there will be a Native American woman on board. Astronaut Nicole Aunapu Mann of the Wailaki Round Valley Indian Tribes will lead the mission and be in charge of all phases of the flight.
“It’s very interesting,” she told the publication, becoming the first indigenous person in space. “I think it’s important that we let our community know about this so that other indigenous children, if they thought it wasn’t possible or realized that some of those barriers that used to be there are really starting to break down. ”
Mann’s training at NASA includes intensive training in International Space Station systems, spacewalks, Russian language training, robotics training, physiology training, T-38 flight training, and water and wilderness survival training.
For Mann, this first space flight is not just historic. In her interview, she saw the journey as breaking down “barriers” for Native American children who didn’t think they could become astronauts.
