Hughes-Fulford, trailblazing astronaut, Tarleton grad dies at 75
The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO Millie Hughes-Fulford, a trailblazing astronaut and scientist who became the first female payload specialist to fly in space for NASA, died following a yearslong battle with cancer, her family said. She was 75.
A Tarleton State University graduate, Hughes-Fulford was selected by NASA for its astronaut program in 1983 and five years later, in June 1991, spent nine days in orbit on the shuttle Columbia, conducting experiments on the effect of space travel on humans as part of the agency’s first mission dedicated to biomedical studies, STS-40. She and her crew mates circled the Earth 146 times.
“She came back to her world as a scientist and carried this experience of having flown in space and that became a unique filter through which she passed all of her scientific work,” said Dr. Mike Barratt, a NASA flight surgeon assigned to Columbia, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
The laboratory was active right up through Hughes-Fulford’s own seven-year battle with lymphoma. She died Feb. 2, at her San Francisco home. Her death was confirmed by her granddaughter, Kira Herzog of Mill Valle.
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“She was one of the bravest people I’ve ever met. She told me that when she was taking off in the shuttle she had absolutely no fear,” Herzog said. “She was logically thinking of what her next task was and that is how she faced everything including her cancer.”
Millie Hughes-Fulford, astronaut and UCSF scientist, dies at 75
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Millie Hughes-Fulford, astronaut and scientist in San Francisco, went into orbit in 1991 aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia.NASAShow MoreShow Less
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The crew of the Columbia enjoying weightlessness. Millie Hughes-Fulford is in back, to the right.NASAShow MoreShow Less
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Millie Hughes-Fulford took leave as a UCSF professor to be a astronaut and researcher on board the Columbia Space Shuttle in 1991.NASAShow MoreShow Less
In 1984, UCSF research professor Millie Hughes-Fulford took a leave from that position and left her Mill Valley home for Houston so she could become an astronaut and work on the Spacelab, a laboratory in Space Shuttle Columbia.