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Millie Hughes-Fulford, a pioneering astronaut and scientist who became the first female payload specialist to fly into space for NASA, died last week after a long battle with cancer, her family said. She was 75. Hughes-Fulford was selected by NASA for its astronaut program in 1983 and spent nine days in orbit with the Columbia shuttle in June 1991, 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 members circled the earth 146 times, reports the AP. The research shaped the rest of her career, and upon her return she founded the Hughes-Fulford Laboratory in the San Francisco VA Healthcare System, which worked to understand the mechanisms that regulate cell growth in mammals. “She came back to her world as a scientist and had the experience of flying in space, and it became a unique filter through which she went through all her scientific work,” said Dr. Mike Barratt, a NASA flight surgeon assigned to Columbia, said. .
“She told me she had absolutely no fear when she took off with the shuttle,” her granddaughter said. “She was thinking logically about what her next task was, and that’s how she faced everything, including her cancer.” Millie Elizabeth Hughes was born in 1945 in Mineral Wells, Texas. At 16, she entered Tarleton State University, where she studied chemistry and biology and was often the only woman in the class. The men did not appreciate it when she outwitted them on exams, her granddaughter said. After obtaining a doctorate in biochemistry, she applied to 100 academic positions across the country and received four responses. She accepts a lab job. In 1978, Hughes-Fulford responded to a magazine ad looking for applicants to be the first woman in space. She reached the final 20 of 8,000 applicants before Sally Ride was selected and then entered the space in Columbia as a researcher. “Millie was an inspiration on so many levels, from the earth’s surface to the low-earth orbit,” said a colleague. “She wrapped every conversation with compassion, optimism, energy, humor and an unwavering confidence that a solution could be found.”
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