Taylor Richardson | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | American |
Other names | Astronaut StarBright |
Education | The Bolles School |
Known for | Advocacy, science, philanthropy |
Taylor Denise Richardson (born July 15, 2003; also known as Astronaut StarBright) is an American advocate, activist, speaker, student and philanthropist. She has crowdfunded over $40,000 to send girls to see the films A Wrinkle in Time and Hidden Figures . She attended Space Camp and has expressed interest in becoming an astronaut and doctor.
Richardson was born in Columbia, South Carolina and attends The Bolles School. [1] Her mother is Latonja Richardson. [2] Richardson is an aspiring astronaut, and admires Mae Jemison. [3] [4] She cites Jemison's book Find Where the Wind Goes, which she read in the third grade, as the source of her interest in space exploration. [5] At the age of nine she attended Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. [6] She is a member of The Mars Generation. [7] Richardson is determined to visit Mars. [8]
In 2015 she organised "Take A Flight with a Book", delivering books to elementary schools in Jacksonville, Florida. She won the Hands On Jax Youth in Action Award for community service. [9] Richardson was invited to attend a screening of Hidden Figures at the White House, where she met NASA astronaut Yvonne Cagle. [10] [11] Here, "Michelle Obama stated that we have to do the work and that we have to take a seat at the STEM table and bring others with us". [12] [13] In 2016, Richardson raised $18,000 to send girls in her hometown of Jacksonville, Florida, to see Hidden Figures. [14] [15] With the remaining proceeds, Richardson created a scholarship for Kaitlyn Ludlam to attend Space Camp. [16] In 2018 she raised over $50,000 to send 1,000 students to see the film A Wrinkle in Time . [17] [18] [19] She told Good Morning America she came up with the campaigns because "representation matters". [20] Oprah Winfrey agreed to match her funding, bringing the total to $100,000. [21]
Later that year, Richardson met astronaut Mae Jemison at the Clark Atlanta University graduation. [5] She attended the White House United State of Women Summit in June 2016. [22] [5] She was appointed the 2016 "Martin Luther King Jr. Tomorrow’s Leaders Middle School" recipient. [23] In 2017 she was listed in Teen Vogue 's "21 under 21". [24] She was also included in Glamour 's "17 Young Women Who Created Real Change In 2017". [25] In April 2017 she spoke at the March for Science, where she said "Science is not a boy’s game, it’s not a girl’s game. It’s everyone’s game". [26] She was cast as a "#RealLifePowerpuff" girl by Hulu. [27] She was part of the Lottie Dolls campaign, "Inspired by Real Kids". [28] [29] She featured on the cover of the Girls in Aviation Day September 2017. [30] In October, Richardson's story "Dreaming Big" was the cover story in Scholastic Science World. [31] She is a Generation WOW and W speaker. [32] Mashable described Richardson as the "coolest 14-year-old". [33] She was a keynote speaker at Silicon Republic's Inspire Fest. [34] She was listed as a Young Futurist by The Root . [35]
Mae Carol Jemison is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first African-American woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992. Jemison joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1987 and was selected to serve for the STS-47 mission, during which the Endeavour orbited the Earth for nearly eight days on September 12–20, 1992.
Helen Patricia Sharman, CMG, OBE, HonFRSC is a British chemist and cosmonaut who became the first British person, first Western European woman and first privately funded woman in space, as well as the first woman to visit the Mir space station, in May 1991.
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Deep space exploration is the branch of astronomy, astronautics and space technology that is involved with exploring the distant regions of outer space. However, there is little consensus on the meaning of "distant" regions. In some contexts, it is used to refer to interstellar space. The International Telecommunication Union defines "deep space" to start at a distance of 2 million km from the Earth's surface. NASA's Deep Space Network has variously used criteria of 16,000 to 32,000 km from Earth. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft.
Teen Mom is an American reality television series broadcast by MTV. It is the first spin-off of 16 and Pregnant, and it focuses on the lives of several young mothers as they navigate motherhood and strained family and romantic relationships. Its first run consists of four seasons originally aired between December 8, 2009, and October 9, 2012, while another four seasons have aired during its second run that began on March 23, 2015. Season 9 premiered on January 26, 2021.
Creola Katherine Johnson was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights. During her 33-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. The space agency noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist".
Yajaira Sierra-Sastre is a Puerto Rican materials scientist, educator, and aspiring astronaut. She was part of a six-person crew, and the only Hispanic, selected to participate in a four-month-long, Mars analog mission funded by NASA. Sierra-Sastre aspires to become the first Puerto Rican woman to travel to outer space.
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Hidden Figures is a 2016 American biographical drama film directed by Theodore Melfi and written by Melfi and Allison Schroeder. It is loosely based on the 2016 non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly about three female African-American mathematicians: Katherine Goble Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, who worked at NASA during the Space Race. Other stars include Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Mahershala Ali, Aldis Hodge, and Glen Powell.
Storm Reid is an American actress. After playing a small role in the television film A Cross to Bear (2012), Reid made an appearance in the period drama film 12 Years a Slave (2013). She earned recognition for a starring role in the superhero film Sleight (2016), and had her breakthrough with the fantasy film A Wrinkle in Time (2018).
Music in space is music played in or broadcast from a spacecraft in outer space. The first ever song that was performed in space was a Ukrainian song “Watching the sky...”(“Дивлюсь я на небо”) sang on 12 August 1962 by Pavlo Popovych, cosmonaut from Ukraine at a special request of Serhiy Korolyov, Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer from Ukraine. According to the Smithsonian Institution, the first musical instruments played in outer space were an 8-note Hohner "Little Lady" harmonica and a handful of small bells carried by American astronauts Wally Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford aboard Gemini 6A. Upon achieving a space rendezvous in Earth orbit with their sister ship Gemini 7 in December 1965, Schirra and Stafford played a rendition of "Jingle Bells" over the radio after jokingly claiming to have seen an unidentified flying object piloted by Santa Claus. The instruments had been smuggled on-board without NASA's knowledge, leading Mission Control director Elliot See to exclaim "You're too much" to Schirra after the song. The harmonica was donated to the Smithsonian by Schirra in 1967, with his note that it "...plays quite well".
Abigail Harrison, also known as Astronaut Abby, is an American internet personality and science communicator, particularly in the area of the United States space program. Harrison is the founder and current leader of The Mars Generation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. She is not an astronaut.
Vanessa E. Wyche is an American engineer and civil servant who has served as the director of NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) since June 2021. Previously, she served as deputy director of JSC since August 2018. As a lead engineer, she assisted the JSC leadership team with policy development, staff relations, strategic planning, and management integration of technical, mission support and communications activities.
Joy Adowaa Buolamwini is a Ghanaian-American-Canadian computer scientist and digital activist based at the MIT Media Lab. Buolamwini introduces herself as a poet of code, daughter of art and science. She founded the Algorithmic Justice League, an organization that works to challenge bias in decision-making software, using art, advocacy, and research to highlight the social implications and harms of artificial intelligence (AI).
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Alyssa Carson is an American space enthusiast and doctoral student who has attended numerous space camps and has visited every NASA visitor center. She has been profiled by a variety of news outlets, public interest publications, and interview shows as an unofficial astronaut-in-training.