Space Pioneer Explored the Valley First

Long before she ventured into the cosmos for her historic spacewalk, astronaut Kathryn Sullivan logged countless hours exploring the wide, open spaces near her childhood home in Woodland Hills.

“Growing up here . . . it was semirural,” recalled the 45-year-old veteran of three shuttle missions.

“I’d wander over a 10-mile radius, feeding all my scientific instincts.”

Those instincts led the Taft High School grad to secure a place among the 20 scientists chosen as mission specialists and become one of a handful of women to join the first class of space shuttle astronauts.

Sullivan and colleague Sally Ride, who were the first American women in space, discovered while preparing for their 1984 mission that they had been first-grade classmates at Hayvenhurst Elementary in Encino.

It was on their shared voyage--which began Oct. 5, 1984, aboard the space shuttle Challenger--that Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space.

“It is an intriguing and wonderful experience,” Sullivan said of the 3 1/2 hours she floated above Earth.

“The view is obviously great. The experience lingers and grows for a long time after it’s over.”

Sullivan’s interest in space dates to her childhood in the Valley, when her father worked as an engineer for Lockheed Corp.

She credits exposure to her father’s work with helping her develop an affinity for “things technical.”

The oceanographer and geologist helped launch the Hubble Space Telescope on her mission aboard Discovery in 1990 and served as payload commander for the Spacelab flight aboard Atlantis in 1992.

She has logged 532 hours in space.

As president and chief executive officer of the Center of Science and Industry, an educational facility in Columbus, Ohio, she hopes to help a new generation of explorers prepare for their pursuit of the unknown.