Reach for the stars and follow your dreams

Dr. Fisher was born in New York City, NY, but grew up in San Pedro, California after living in many places in the US and Germany due to her father's military career.. She received a BS and MS in Chemistry and a Doctor of Medicine from the University of California, Los Angeles specializing in Emergency Medicine. Dr. Fisher was selected as a NASA astronaut in January 1978 and was in the first group of women ever selected for the US Space Program.. She flew onboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-51A in Nov 1984 which deployed two communication satellites and for the first time in history retrieved and returned two satellites to earth to be refurbished and relaunched. On that mission she served as the flight engineer and the robotic arm operator and became the first mother to fly in space. After the Challenger accident, Dr. Fisher took a 7 year leave of absence to raise her family, and then returned in January of 1996. She served as the chief of the Space Station Branch for several years in the early stages of building the International Space Station overseeing the launch of the first two expedition crews to the ISS. Following the Columbia accident in February of 2003, Dr. Fisher served as an ISS Capcom In Mission Control and her last NASA assignment involved working on display development for the Orion crew vehicle as part of the Artemis program which will return astronauts to the moon. Dr. Fisher retired from NASA in April of 2017 becoming one of the longest serving astronauts at 36 years and 9 months. She currently spends her time traveling and speaking about the space program and the importance of careers in STEM fields as well as spending time with her two daughters and her two granddaughters and three grandsons.