Woman In Motion

I first saw this film on the life of Nichelle Nichols in July 2021, re-watched it last February and had to see it again for this year's Black History Month. I'm not much in to sci-fi or Star Trek but I do love me a good documentary. In watching this film I came to realise that Nichelle Nichols proved to be way, way more than just a beautiful woman. She was a gifted singer, with a helluva range, and performed with Duke Ellington in her younger years. She also birthed legions of fans with her role on Star Trek as Communications Officer Lieutenant Uhura. But what I discovered when I first viewed this fantastic documentary was that Ms. Nichols changed the world. At the 1975 Star Trek convention in Chicago there was a NASA scientist, Jesco Von Puttkamer, an aero-space engineer, there as a speaker. Hearing him speak inspired Ms. Nichols because as fascinating as the space program was, she did not feel represented in the present program as a Black person and as a woman. At finding that NASA was not even considering employing women for space travel and felt that "there were no qualified black people" for the program either, Ms. Nichols began writing and having articles published on this, which caught the eye of the press who wanted to hear more from Ms. Nichols. In early 1977 she was appointed to the board of directors of the National Space Institute and saw first hand the lack of diversity at NASA. They took notice and reached out to Ms. Nichols to come on as a recruiter for the new class of astronauts for the space shuttle program. Nichelle Nichols took the helm and what she achieved was absolutely astonishing. This is what she accomplished:

When Nichelle started out, NASA had only 1500 astronaut applications after an eight month period. 

Fewer than 100 were from women.

And only 35 were minorities. 

When she finished NASA had over 8,000 applications. 1,649 from women and over 1,000 from minorities.

Her recruitment campaign lasted just 4 months. 

NASA was so impressed with her results, they increased the 1978 astronaut class roster from 25 to 35.

(photo kidnapped from paramountplus)

Woman In Motion is not to be missed and I'm so glad that Kanopy was streaming it for free so I could see it all over again. Nichelle Nichols was an incredible person who left a true and indelible mark on this little blue marble.