'A brush with immortality': Alamogordo educators remember Nichelle Nichols

Nichelle Nichols who died Saturday, July 30 in Silver City at the age of 89 was part of a NASA observation mission on Sept. 15, 2015 that included staff from the New Mexico School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo.

Nichols was known for playing Lt. Nyota Uhura on Star Trek: The Original Series which ran from 1966 to 1969 and can still be seen in syndication. She also played Uhura in six Star Trek films.

Later, Nichols helped recruit women and people of color to the space program through her consulting firm Women in Motion.

She is credited with bringing in more than 8,000 applicants in the space of four months in 1977. These applicants included more than 1,600 women and more than 1,000 people of color.

As part of her efforts to support scientific research, Nichols joined the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) mission in 2015, which saw scientists observe stars and other celestial bodies via aircraft.

On that flight was Michael Shinabery of the New Mexico Museum of Space History and Jeff Killebrew of the New Mexico School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

"It was just an honor to be able to not only experience the (SOFIA) missions with NASA but to be blessed to be able to participate with her," Killebrew said. "Have a little brush with immortality."

More:Nichelle Nichols, 'Star Trek' icon who played Lieutenant Uhura, dies at 89

Shinabery remembers it as one of the highlights of his working there.

"We actually met her in California when we did the first of two flights on SOFIA and it was not her first (SOFIA) mission," Shinabery said.

Nichols had flown on SOFIA once before, Killebrew said.

The SOFIA flights were overnight and during the flight, Nichols took questions from students across the country.

"She was online from shortly after takeoff of our mission for the next five or six hours," Killebrew said.

But before takeoff, Nichols sang "Beyond Antares" to the SOFIA crew, Shinabery said.

"We had our headphones on, and we were all getting into our consoles, as educators we had our separate consoles and we started hearing singing coming through our headphones and it was her singing to our entire crew," Killebrew said.

Nichols sang the song on Star Trek and had released it in 1991 as a part of her album "Out of this World."

Killebrew also gave Nichols a lesson in reading Braille at about 45,000 feet, he said.

"Probably the world's highest Braille lesson occurred during that time," Killebrew said.

Nichols was a part of the flight from the mission and weather briefings and got to know the rest the crew, Shinabery said.

"She took the time to sit down and spend time with every one of us individually like she'd known us for a long time," Shinabery said. "That was just her personality."

Nichols had a stroke that year in 2015, and lived with dementia beginning in 2018.

The SOFIA missions are expected to conclude at the end of the 2022 fiscal year after eight years of discovery.

"In the eight years since, SOFIA’s observations of the Moon, planets, stars, star-forming regions and nearby galaxies included the discovery of water on the sunlit surface of the Moon in 2020," a NASA news release about SOFIA states.

Nicole Maxwell can be contacted by email at nmaxwell@alamogordonews.com, by phone at 575-415-6605 or on Twitter at @nicmaxreporter.