Judith Resnik (1949-1986)

With a bachelor’s degree, Resnik went to work with RCA. She was assigned first to the missile and service radar division and then to the service division. In 1974, she joined the National Institutes of Health as a staff scientist in the neurophysiology department which led her to earning her Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the University of Maryland.

Her interest in solving problems and discovering new frontiers lead her to NASA in 1978. She was one of the first six women to ever enter the U.S. space program and on August 30, 1984 she became the second American women ever to fly in space, on the six day Discovery mission.

On Earth she worked with others on designing and developing the remote manipulator system. But before she could test her equipment in orbit, she died tragically in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.