Gay astronauts

Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, – July 23, ) was an American astronaut and physicist. Openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual people were not allowed to join the US military until Don't Ask Don't Tell was repealed in Similarly, trans people were not allowed to join the military untilwhere they could serve as their identified astronaut only after completing transition.

Another lesser-known scare, known as the ' Lavender Scare ', happened between the late s to the s, and focused on removing homosexual people from government employment. As a government agency, NASA was not exempt from the purging and many employees were dismissed on grounds of homosexuality.

As a result, they did not change the telescope's name. In the time leading up to the James Webb Space Telescope's launch, the telescope was at the centre of a controversy as to whether it should be renamed. In life, Sally Ride became famous as America's first woman in space — and in death, she's now added to her fame as the first acknowledged gay revelation came in a low-key way.

Coincidentally, it was the summer ofwhen NASA triumphed with its Apollo 11 moon landing, that the Stonewall riots in New York began an assertive time of grassroots protest and demand for equal rights for gay and trans Americans. Mavalvala is a lesbian who has been publicly out for much of her career.

Kameny was working for the US Army when he gay arrested and subsequently fired in ; he went on to become a prominent gay rights activist. One of the most notable cases from during this time period is that of Frank Kameny, astronomer and significant gay rights activist.

Gay people were not allowed to join the military untilwhen the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy was introduced. Going to space as a NASA astronaut inRide was the first American woman and the third woman ever to go to space.

She was a physicist who became an astronaut after applying for NASA's training programme in Her application was one of over eight thousandonly thirty-five were successful; a mere six people in her class were women. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA inand in became the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space, after cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova in and Svetlana Savitskaya in She was the youngest American gay animation comic to have flown in space, having done so at the age of We examine the space industry's historical treatment of LGBTQ+ people, why there has never been an out LGBTQ+ astronaut, and more for Pride Month A few decades later, it was announced that the Hubble Space Telescope's successor would be named after him.

As well as her prestigious role at MIT, Malvala worked on the Laser Interferometric Gravitational Wave Observatory LIGOan observatory which detects cosmic gravitational waves and is working on adopting gravitational-wave observations as a tool for observing astronomical phenomena.

Only one is publicly known to have been gay or bisexual — Sally. Ride's only public relationship was her five-year marriage to fellow astronaut Steven Hawley, from After her death, however, it was discovered that she had been in a relationship with writer and tennis player Tam O'Shaughnessy for twenty-seven years, from until her death in According to their mission statementthey set out to "empower lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics by providing education, advocacy, professional development, networking, and peer support".

Gay Americans were persecuted throughout the s, the decade when astronauts first flew. Multiple recipients of this award have been scientists in the space industry, including the award's most recent winner, Jane Rigby. Three hundred and thirty American men and women have served as astronauts since the start of Gay human spaceflight program.

NASA, however, released a report in Novemberalmost a year after the James Webb Space Telescope was launched, which found that "no available evidence directly links Webb to any actions of follow-up related to the firing of individuals for their sexual orientation ".

Despite the significance of their work, they were more often than not subject to horrific prejudice and discrimination. Interestingly, she said in an interview with the American Astronomical Society that it was Sally Ride that made her realise that girls can study physics, and that astrophysics was a job she could have at NASA.

The US astronaut specifically has a huge impact — over half of the people who have been to space have done so with NASA. Don't Ask Don't Tell prevented the military from investigating or discovering lesbian, gay, or bisexual service members — but still banned openly LGB people from joining.

Well, there's a multitude of factors, and a lot of history there. McCarthyism and the Red Scare are well-known facets of American history, where huge numbers of suspected communists were investigated, lost their jobs, and some were even imprisoned.

In less than twenty years, thousands of government employees lost their jobs due to homosexuality or allegations of homosexuality.