--- title: Meet The Only Married Couple To Fly Together In Space description: Plus other stories of astronaut romance canonical: https://time.com/4218472/astronaut-couples-valentines-day/ author: TIME Photo article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-12T19:34:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:00:25.475Z article:section: Science og:title: Meet The Only Married Couple To Fly Together In Space og:description: And other stories of astronaut romance og:url: https://time.com/4218472/astronaut-couples-valentines-day/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte6ad04b5252673a3/69887d793c16391cd645c032/valentina-tereshkova-andrian-nikolayev-astronaut-couples-hearts-fb.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1000 og:image:height: 500 og:image:alt: Valentina-Tereshkova-Andrian-Nikolayev-astronaut-couples-hearts-fb og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Meet The Only Married Couple To Fly Together In Space twitter:description: And other stories of astronaut romance twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte6ad04b5252673a3/69887d793c16391cd645c032/valentina-tereshkova-andrian-nikolayev-astronaut-couples-hearts-fb.jpg?branch=production ---  # Meet The Only Married Couple To Fly Together In Space by [TIME Photo](https://time.com/author/time-photo/) ## TIME Photo Feb 12, 2016 7:34 PM UTC  Getty Images (2); Gif by Lauren Margit Jones for TIME by [TIME Photo](https://time.com/author/time-photo/) ## TIME Photo Feb 12, 2016 7:34 PM UTC  Mark Lee and Jan Davis were the first (and so far only) married couple to fly together in space. They flew aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-47) in 1992\. Lee and Davis had met during training for the flight and were secretly married shortly before liftoff. Once they disclosed their marriage to NASA, it was too late to train a substitute. NASA has since changed its policies to forbid married couples from flying together NASA  Soviet cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Andriyan Nikolayev were married on Nov. 3, 1963\. Tereshkova was launched aboard Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963, becoming the first woman to fly in space. Andrian Nikolayev flew on two missions during his career, Vostok 3 and Soyuz 9\. The pair had one daughter; they divorced in 1982. Sovfoto/UIG/Getty Images  Peter Wisoff and Tammy Jernigan were married in 1999\. Wisoff is a veteran of 4 space flights, including the STS-57 Endeavour mission in 1993\. Jernigan is a veteran of 5 space flights, including the STS-96 Discovery mission in 1999, during which the crew performed the first docking with the International Space Station. NASA  Robert "Hoot" Gibson and Rhea Seddon were married on May 30, 1981\. They are still married today with three children, Paul, Dann, and Emilee. Between them they have flown eight times, five flown by Gibson and three by Seddon. NASA  Sally Ride and Steven Hawley were married for five years from 1982 until 1987\. Ride was the first American woman in space, flying on the shuttle Challenger in June, 1983\. Ride later spent 27 years with Tam O'Shaughnessy, a science writer and co-founder of the science education company Sally Ride Science. Though they never married, they remained partners until Ride's passing in 2012. NASA  Shannon Walker and Andy Thomas were married in 2005\. Thomas is a veteran of four space flights including 2005's STS-114 mission. Walker launched and served as flight engineer of Russia's Soyuz spacecraft, TMA-19, in 2010 for a long duration mission aboard the ISS. NASA  Bonnie Dunbar and Ron Sega were married in 1988\. Dunbar is a veteran of five flights, logging more than 1,200 hours in space. Sega was an astronaut for five years, during which he flew aboard STS-60, the first joint U.S./Russian Space Shuttle Mission, launched in 1994. NASA  Doug Hurley and Karen Nyberg met in the same NASA astronaut class of 2000\. They married years later and have a four-year-old son. Between them they have flown four times, two flown by Hurley and two flown by Nyberg. 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