Aisha Bowe is an inspiration for Black women who aspire to work in the space industry. As previously reported by AFROTECH™, Bowe is a former rocket scientist for NASA and received the National Society of Black Engineers award for Outstanding Technical Contribution. However, before earning accolades, the aerospace engineer struggled to find her footing in her academic journey. In an interview with the “Earn Your Leisure” podcast, Bowe recalled not doing well during her time at community college. “I bombed the first semester,” Bowe told hosts Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings. “I think I’m going to be a business student and study economics.” Ultimately, struggling in community college led her to pursue a dream that she thought was once unachievable — becoming a rocket scientist. So, she transitioned into aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan, although people around her didn’t understand why she was pursuing the career. “They literally thought that I had lost it,” she said....

Meet the first Black woman to join the International Space Station (ISS) crew! Jessica Watkins is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut who will make history with her debut spaceflight. She is set to become the first Black woman to not only join the space station crew but also live and work in space for a long-duration mission on the orbiting outpost, according to TODAY. She will make her journey starting April 2022 aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule from the NASA Kennedy Space Center located in Cape Canaveral, FL. It is anticipated that the mission, known as Crew-4, will last six months. For Watkins, this is just yet another leap to making her dreams come true. Last December, NASA released a video where the geologist revealed that she had her eyes on a moon mission. “A dream feels like a big, faraway goal that is going to be difficult to achieve and something that you might achieve much later in life,” she said, according to NBC News. “But in reality,...