Judith Resnik

Astronaut and engineer

• Born: April 5, 1949
• Birthplace: Akron, Ohio
• Died: January 28, 1986
• Place of death: Atlantic Ocean, near Cape Canaveral, Florida

Resnik was an accomplished engineer best known for her work as an astronaut. She was the second Jewish person, the first Jewish woman, and the second American woman to fly into space.

Early life

Judith Resnik (REHZ-nihk) was the first child of Marvin and Sarah Resnik. She was raised in Akron, Ohio, where her father was an optometrist. When she was old enough, Resnik attended Hebrew school at Beth El Synagogue. Her secular education was provided by public schools. She attended Fairlawn Elementary School, Simon Perkins Junior High School, and Firestone High School, where she was a serious student who excelled in math and science.

Learning was important in her household. Resnik’s after-school life included chores, homework, cooking lessons, and piano lessons. Judaism was a significant component of her childhood, and the Resniks attended temple each week and observed Jewish holidays and traditions. Over time, Resnik’s relationship with her mother became strained. Eventually, her parents divorced, and Resnik petitioned the court to live with her father, even though her mother had been awarded custody of the children.

In 1966, Resnik entered the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), originally intending to be a mathematics major, but she later changed to electrical engineering. She graduated in 1970, and she soon married fellow student Michael Oldak in a traditional ceremony. The couple moved to the Washington, D.C., area after her husband was accepted into law school. The couple separated in 1975 and eventually divorced, though they remained friends.

Life’s work

Upon graduating from college, Resnik began work at the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), where she worked on missile and radar technology. However, she was not happy with that work. In 1974, Resnik took a position with the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Laboratory of Neurophysiology. Along with her job as a biomedical engineer with the NIH, Resnik worked on a Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, studying the properties of rhodopsin, a chemical required for night vision, in eyes. She was awarded her doctorate in 1977. Almost at once, she learned that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was recruiting astronauts for the soon-to-be-launched space shuttle program. Despite the fact that NASA had never hired women astronauts, Resnik applied. In the meantime, she took a job as a systems engineer for Xerox. She learned on December 30, 1977, that she had been selected as one of six women to be part of NASA’s astronaut corps.

After completing her one-year training period, Resnik began work on engineering support for the space shuttle orbiter. Though she worked on many systems and on software development, her specialty was the remote manipulator system (RMS), the space shuttle’s robotic arm. Resnik’s determination and meticulous attention to detail served her well in her work with NASA. She often remarked that this was the job that she really wanted, and that her time with NASA was the happiest of her life. Her first mission into space was aboard the maiden voyage of the Discovery on the STS 41-D Space Shuttle mission, where her skills with the shuttle’s robotic arm were well utilized. On this mission, she assisted in the deployment of a 103-foot-long solar panel and with the deployment of three satellites.

Resnik’s second trip into space was to have been STS 51-L, aboard theChallenger. Tragically, Challenger’s external fuel tank exploded, causing the orbiter to break apart seventy-three seconds after launch. The crew compartment, with all seven astronauts aboard, fell into the Atlantic Ocean about eighteen miles from the launch site. There were no survivors.

Significance

Resnik died just as she was entering the most productive part of her career. However, she was an important part of the American space program, and she made many contributions to the technical side of the program. She avoided publicity as much as possible during her career as an astronaut. Her death in the Challenger accident has often been overshadowed by that of Christa McAuliffe, a teacher selected to fly on the same mission. However, several schools and engineering awards have been named in Resnik’s honor, and people familiar with the space program know of her contributions and her place in history. Resnik wanted to be known simply as a competent astronaut, not as a Jewish astronaut or as a woman astronaut. After college, she downplayed her Jewish heritage and gradually became less observant of Judaism, though she never lost her faith. It is ironic that she is best known for being the first Jewish woman to travel into space.

Bibliography

Bernstein, Jeanne E., and Rose Blue. Judith Resnik: Challenger Astronaut. New York: Lodestar Books, 1990. Written for a juvenile audience, this is an excellent biography of Resnik.

Kevles, Bettyann Holtzmann. Almost Heaven: The Story of Women in Space. New York: Basic Books, 2003. An excellent book about women in space exploration with some good information about Resnik as an astronaut.

Kolbert, Elizabeth. “Two Paths to the Stars: Turnings and Triumphs.” The New York Times, February 9, 1986, sec. 1, p. 1. Part of a series on the Challenger astronauts, written shortly after their deaths. This part covers the career of Resnik.

Mahler, Julianne G., and Maureen Hogan Casamayou. Organizational Learning at NASA: The Columbia and Challenger Accidents. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2009. A comparison of the two fatal space shuttle accidents, with a criticism of NASA’s decision-making process in regard to the events leading to these accidents.

Stuckey, Mary E. Slipping the Surly Bonds: Reagan’s Challenger Address. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2006. An analysis of President Ronald Reagan’s address to the nation the evening of the Challenger accident, with an overview on how the space shuttle program fit into the national space policy.