Nichelle Nichols, the actress famed for playing Lt. Uhura on the original Star Trek series, revealed in a Reddit AMA on Thursday that she will be flying aboard NASA's SOFIA space telescope when it takes to the sky in September.
The telescope is housed in a modified 747, according to the Mirror, which flies in the stratosphere, roughly 50,000 feet above the surface of the Earth. At this altitude, NASA is able to capture images from a completely different perspective than that available from the ground. Surprisingly, it won't be the first time that Nichols has joined just such a mission.
Star Trek's Uhura will fly a NASA mission aged 82 and 3 months after having a stroke http://t.co/QPdOXHUw2I pic.twitter.com/GqGE5fWcZc
— Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) July 31, 2015
— Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) July 31, 2015
The announcement comes just months after Nichols, 82, suffered a mild stroke, as the Inquisitr previously reported. The actress was hospitalized in early June, but the damage from the stroke was found to be minor.
How Martin Luther King Jr. convinced 'Star Trek's' Lt. Uhura to stay on the show http://t.co/MHuh6jAjVm pic.twitter.com/SOF0ZBkPeV
— Shareef Jackson (@ShareefJackson) August 2, 2015
— Shareef Jackson (@ShareefJackson) August 2, 2015
"Dr. Martin Luther King, quite some time after I'd first met him, approached me and said something along the lines of 'Nichelle, whether you like it or not, you have become an symbol [sic]. If you leave, they can replace you with a blonde-haired white girl, and it will be like you were never there. What you've accomplished, for all of us, will only be real if you stay.' That got me thinking about how it would look for fans of color around the country if they saw me leave. I saw that this was bigger than just me."
#IBecameAFanBecause of "Uhura" /Nichelle Nichols. An intelligent woman of African descent in future! #scifi @StarTrek pic.twitter.com/TtWcbYBIXJ
— Kim Love (@kimmaytube) August 1, 2015
— Kim Love (@kimmaytube) August 1, 2015
[Photo by Jemal Countess / Getty Images]
