First Native American woman breaks space barriers

HOUSTON, Tex.-Recently the Dragon Endurance spacecraft, built by SpaceX, launched a voyage to the International Space Station. The flight made history because one of the astronauts, mission commander Nicole Mann, became the first Native American woman to enter space.

Mann, a 45-year-old member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, is serving as mission commander for the SpaceX Crew-5 mission. The flight marked the sixth time Elon Musk's space company has ferried astronauts to the ISS on behalf of NASA.

Mann's flight comes 20 years after the first Native American man walked in space in 2002. Mann is also the first woman to serve in the commander role during a SpaceX mission.

"I feel very proud," Mann told reporters before lift-off, as reported by The Guardian's Maya Yang. "It's important that we celebrate our diversity and really communicate that specifically to the younger generation."

According to Smithsonian magazine, Mann was born in Petaluma, California, studied mechanical engineering at the United States Naval Academy, and then earned her master's degree from Stanford. She began her military career with the United States Marine Corps as a second lieutenant in 1999. In 2003, she became a naval aviator. She has flown in 47 combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, has served as a test pilot for the F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet, and has flown more than 2,500 hours in 25 different types of aircraft.

Now a colonel in the Marine Corps, Mann began training with NASA in 2013. On this journey she is responsible for "all phases of flight, from launch to re-entry.

Mann told NPR's, "All Things Considered," that she appreciates being a role model. "These young women, maybe Natives, maybe people from different backgrounds that realize that they have these opportunities and [that] potentially these barriers that used to be there are starting to be broken down."