Question 1

True or false: Mae Jemison was the first Black woman to travel to space aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.

Accepted Answer

True. She flew as a mission specialist on STS-47, a cooperative mission between the United States and Japan.

Question 2

True or false: Mae Jemison was the first woman of any race to fly in space, beating Valentina Tereshkova by several years.

Accepted Answer

False. Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in 1963, nearly 30 years before Jemison's flight.

Question 3

True or false: Mae Jemison earned her PhD in astrophysics from Stanford University before joining NASA.

Accepted Answer

False. She earned a BS in chemical engineering and a BA in African American studies from Stanford, then an MD from Cornell.

Question 4

True or false: Before becoming an astronaut, Mae Jemison served as a medical officer in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Accepted Answer

True. She volunteered in the Peace Corps from 1983 to 1985, providing medical care in West Africa.

Question 5

True or false: Mae Jemison is a trained dancer and once appeared on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation as an extra.

Accepted Answer

True. She danced at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and appeared in a cameo as a transporter chief in 1993.

Question 6

True or false: Mae Jemison founded a company that develops 100% biodegradable, algae-based plastic packaging for food products.

Accepted Answer

True. Her company, BioSentient, focuses on health tech, but she also advocates for sustainable materials through other ventures.

Question 7

True or false: Mae Jemison was the first astronaut to bring a West African artifact, a statuette from the Benin Empire, into space.

Accepted Answer

False. She did bring a photo of dancer Judith Jamison and a flag of the Organization of African Unity, but no Benin statuette.

Question 8

True or false: During her space mission, Mae Jemison conducted experiments on the effects of weightlessness on frogs.

Accepted Answer

False. She conducted experiments on bone cells and motion sickness, but no frogs were involved in her specific mission.

Mae Jemison Trivia Questions