1. She kept all hailing frequencies open in her starship's travels. Back home on Earth, she ran a program to help women and minorities enter the space program and otherwise succeed in life. Who was this astronomic ambassador?
From Quiz Ten Humanitarian Sci-Fi Stars of the 60s-70s
Answer:
Nichelle Nichols
Nichelle Nichols portrayed communications officer Lt. Nyota Uhura, whose name means "star freedom" in Swahili (roughly), in the original "Star Trek" series and in the first six cinematic features. Uhura was a significant member of the multicultural crew and one of the first black characters portrayed in an non-servile position on U.S. television. She nearly quit over lack of lines, but Martin Luther King, Jr. encouraged her to persevere.
It is not surprising that she drew on this character to do good work, and it also had long been Nichols' belief that for healing rifts in the human race, humanity must seek knowledge. She volunteered for NASA from 1977 to 2015 to help recruit people of color and women, and to that end she created and ran a program called Women in Motion. Famous recruits include Dr. Sally Ride (1951-2012), America's first woman astronaut, and Col. Guion Bulford, the first African-American astronaut, to name but a few. Nichols also actively worked for The Technology Access Foundation, which equips young students of color for success at university and in careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). She also supported the Planetary Society, co-founded by Carl Sagan "to empower the world's citizens to advance space exploration" (their mission statement). In 2015 she co-launched a large philanthropic endeavor in social media, StarPower, to benefit an assortment of social causes.
Unfortunately, Nichols' younger brother Thomas was part of the Heaven's Gate cult and committed suicide with his comrades on the arrival of the Hale-Bopp comet in 1997. In 2018, Nichols developed dementia and retired from social activism and humanitarian work. The International Astronomical Union named an asteroid "68410 Nichols" to honor her work as a global ambassador for space exploration and for the advancement of knowledge.