Astronaut. Born in Akron, Ohio, she was as a RCA design engineer when recruited into the NASA Astronaut program January 1978. She was the first American Jewish woman to go into space flight was as a mission specialist on the maiden voyage of the Space Shuttle Discovery August to September 1984. On January 28, 1986, she was mission specialist on the Space Shuttle Challenger when killed with all the crew members during a launch explosion from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. She was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. (bio by: John “J-Cat” Griffith)