| 11-08 TABLE of CONTENTS:
Astronaut Catherine Coleman
DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
QUOTE by
Katharine Hepburn.
Capt. Catherine G. Coleman, Ph.D.
Wasn't it sweeeeet -
According to 1995 news reports, astronaut Catherine
Coleman shook a bag containing candy to show that everything weighs the
same in space in a televised science hookup from the orbiting Columbia
spacecraft to earth-bound students - while other astronauts such as Al
Sacco could concentrate on crystals and "hard" science. The news
media also reported Coleman fielded kitchen/cooking questions about what
happens re domesticity in space.
Dr./Captain Coleman's official NASA biography that
same year read as follows: Catherine
G. "Cady" Coleman, Ph.D. (Captain, USAF); NASA Astronaut; Born
December 14, 1960, in Charleston, South Carolina. Brown hair; brown eyes;
5 feet 4 inches; 115 pounds.
EDUCATION: received a bachelor of science degree in
chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983 and a
doctorate in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts
in 1991.
Single, she enjoys flying, scuba diving, sports, music.
As an undergraduate she competed in intercollegiate athletics on MIT's
crew team. Dr. Coleman was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the Air
Force in 1983 and began graduate work at the University of Massachusetts.
Her research focused on polymer synthesis, using the olefin metathesis
reaction and polymer surface modification. In 1988 Coleman entered active
duty and was assigned to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. As a research
chemist at the Materials Directorate of the Wright Laboratory, she synthesized
model compounds to investigate the use of organic polymers for third-order
nonlinear optical applications such as advanced computers and data storage.
Coleman also acted as a surface analysis consultant for the Long Duration
Exposure Facility (launched from STS 41-C in 1984 and retrieved during
STS-32 in 1990). In addition to assigned duties, Coleman was a volunteer
test subject for the centrifuge program at the Crew Systems Directorate
of the Armstrong Aeromedical Laboratory. She set several endurance and
tolerance records during her participation in physiological and new equipment
studies.
NASA EXPERIENCE: Coleman was selected by NASA in March
1992 and reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1992. Initially
assigned to the Astronaut Office Mission Support Branch and detailed to
flight software verification in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory,
Coleman presently serves as a special assistant to the Center Director,
Johnson Space Center.
CURRENT ASSIGNMENT: Coleman is assigned as a mission
specialist on STS-73, the second United States Microgravity Laboratory
mission (USML-2), aboard Space Shuttle Columbia now in orbit. The 16-day
mission is focusing on materials science, biotechnology, combustion science,
the physics of fluids and many other scientific experiments to be housed
in the pressurized Spacelab module.
| PRIOR DATE |
| HOME |
| WOA INDEX |
| NEXT DATE |
| RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
|
11-08 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
B. 11-08-1897, Dorothy Day, helped found the
Catholic Worker movement and organized houses for the handicapped and
hungry. Her conversion from free-love and socialism to Roman Catholic activist
is described in From Union Square to Rome (1938). During the Viet
Nam conflict she supported and aided those who refused military service.
B. 11-08-1900, Margaret Mitchell, winner of
1937 Pulitzer Prize for Gone with the Wind, her only novel.
Sold rights to Gone With the Wind to David Selznick for $50,000.
The film was one of the highest money grossers of all time until the price
of movie tickets skyrocketed.
B. 11-08-1907, Katherine Hepburn, actor.
Academy Awards for Morning Glory (1932), Guess Who's Coming
to Dinner? (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968) and On Golden
Pond (1981). Nominated eight more times for her work in such movies
as The Philadelphia Story (1940), and The African Queen (1951).
A national treasure.
Event: 11-08-1910: a constitutional amendment
to extend suffrage to women is passed in the State of Washington.
B. 11-08-1933, Esther Rolle, actor.
Event: 11-08-1938, Crystal Bird Fauset elected
to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, the first U.S. black woman
legislator.
B. 11-08-1949, Bonnie Raitt, singer, songwriter.
Grammy award winner. Her mother was a pianist.
Event 11-08-1967, President Lyndon Johnson
signed a new law which gave women in the military equal promotion and retirement
and removed the two percent restriction on the number of women allowed
into the military.
Event 11-08-1984: physician Dr. Anna L. Fisher
is the third American woman astronaut in space and the first mother.
Event 11-08-1990, the Gender Gap at the voting
booth succeeded in electing Ann Richards as Texas Governor (with 61%
of the women's vote) and Barbara Roberts as Oregon Governor with 30% more
of the women's vote than her opponent got. Sharon Pratt Dixon was elected
the first black woman to head the Washington, D.C. government. Joan Finney
who opposed abortion was elected governor of Kansas. Of 85 women who ran
for statewide offices, 57 won... all with significant Gender Gap margins...
| PRIOR DATE |
| HOME |
| WOA INDEX |
| NEXT DATE |
| RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
|
QUOTES DU JOUR
HEPBURN, KATHARINE:
"Being a housewife
and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn't interest
you, don't do it. It didn't interest me, so I didn't do it. Anyway, I would
have made a terrible parent. The first time my child didn't do what I wanted,
I'd kill him."
--
Katharine Hepburn in a People magazine interview.
| PRIOR DATE |
| HOME |
| WOA INDEX |
| NEXT DATE |
| RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
|
|
