Judith Resnik 1949-1986

She was not the first woman in space, or even the first American woman. Those honors went to the Soviet Union’s Valentina Tereshkova (1963) and America’s Sally Ride (1983). But Judith (“J.R.”) Resnik may have been the most doggedly determined astronaut, male or female, ever to suit up. “I want to do everything there is to be done,” she once said, and she came close to her goal. A gourmet cook and classical pianist (“I never play anything softly”) with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, she was working on a pilot’s license before she died.

As a child in Akron, where her father was an optometrist, she practiced the piano religiously for an hour every day, even though she often hated it. As a student at Akron’s Firestone High School, she was a member of the honor society, the French club, the chemistry club and the math club (the only girl among 15 boys), and had perfect scores of 800 on her Scholastic Aptitude Tests. “I can still see this little, short brunet in bobby socks and saddle shoes, quiet as a mouse,” said Donald Nutter, a math teacher. “If you had a question no one else could answer, you could call on her.”

Courted by colleges across the country for her math and science skills, Resnik chose to attend Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, from which she received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1970. She landed a job as a design engineer with RCA Corp. in Moorestown, N.J., received her doctorate from the University of Maryland and went to work for the Xerox Corp. in El Segundo, Calif. In March 1978, Resnik began training as an astronaut with NASA; she had been chosen from more than 8,000 applicants. Said Resnik at the time: “This is the first semester since I was four that I haven’t been in school.”

Resnik’s selection for the space program gave her the opportunity to meet a few self-described personal goals: “To learn a lot about quite a number of different technologies; to be able to use them somehow, to do something that required a concerted team effort and, finally, a great individual effort.” She also took up racquetball and weight training. On her first shuttle flight, aboard Discovery in 1984, Mission Specialist Resnik operated the spacecraft’s remote-control arm and performed solar-power experiments with a 102-ft.-high solar sail. She also provided one of the most memorable images in space- program history when television cameras aboard Discovery captured her–in polo shirt and shorts–concentrating on her tasks while her long, curly dark brown locks wafted above her head in zero gravity.

As mission specialist on last week’s flight, Resnik was supposed to help take photographs of Halley’s comet, among other tasks. She was also carrying a signet ring for a nephew and a heart-shaped locket for a niece. “I think something is only dangerous if you are not prepared for it,” she once said of space travel, “or if you don’t have control over it or if you can’t think through how to get yourself out of a problem.” For Resnik, danger was simply another unknown to be mastered.