Anna Lee Fisher: First Mom in Space on Her Journey, Shuttle Missions, and Inspiring Future Explorers

Welcome to Launch Pod, where we chat with innovators who are overcoming challenges, pushing boundaries, and collaborating to make space more accessible and sustainable for humanity—one launch at a time, one small step at a time. Demand. Here’s your host, Susan Wise.

Susan Wise: I am a little starstruck sitting here with this amazing person. You guys are so lucky today to get to enjoy the presence of such an amazing astronaut—NASA astronaut, first mom astronaut, Time Magazine’s 1975 Person of the Year—and all-around inspiration to women and everyone in general. Please welcome Anna Fisher.

Anna Lee Fisher: Thank you, Susan, for that nice introduction. I appreciate it.

Susan Wise: Well, I am thrilled to have you here. I had to show you this really quick—my late husband, when you were going to space, was working as a tour guide at Johnson Space Center. He went to space camp, and this is where the jacket came from. So I quickly pulled it out and started looking at all the patches, trying to find yours, because I love the patch from your mission—STS-51A. Right? And didn’t you design that?

Anna Lee Fisher: I helped. The pilot, Dave Walker, and I were the two rookies on board, and our commander let us take the lead in coming up with the idea. There were two satellites in the middle representing the two we were going to deploy. For the first time in history, there were also two satellites in orbit that were in the wrong orbit because the rocket that was supposed to take them higher failed. We were going to bring them back. There were five stars for the crew members, and since I was helping design the patch, I added a star for my daughter, Kristen, since I was the first mom to go to space.

Susan Wise: I love that. I was hoping it was on here—that would have been so poetic.

Anna Lee Fisher: It would have been great.

Susan Wise: You were talking about the mission—you deployed a couple of satellites and then had to retrieve them. You didn’t just go out there and lasso them; you had to plan for that and create something to rescue them back onto the ship.

Anna Lee Fisher: It was a really neat mission to be part of because no one had ever done that before. I love having the opportunity to work on something no one has done before. These two satellites were not designed to be retrieved by the shuttle’s robotic arm. If you’re going to use a robotic arm, you need a grapple fixture designed to work with it. These satellites didn’t have that.

We were part of developing the method to do it. My crewmate Dale Gardner came up with the idea of attaching a device called a “stinger” to the Manned Maneuvering Unit. The stinger could dock with the nozzle end of the satellite, and on the right side, it had a grapple fixture. We developed the hardware and procedures in a very short time—the satellites were deployed in February 1984, and we flew in November 1984. That’s an incredibly short time to create new hardware, write procedures, and train for the mission.

Susan Wise: Wow.

Anna Lee Fisher: The whole process was just so much fun.

Susan Wise: You were in space almost eight days?

Anna Lee Fisher: Eight days. We deorbited on the morning of the ninth day.

Susan Wise: Amazing.

Anna Lee Fisher: Shuttle missions were a lot shorter than current space station missions. The shuttle could only stay on orbit for about two weeks. Space station missions are much longer—six months to a year or more—so the programs are very different.

Susan Wise: How old was your daughter when you went up?

Anna Lee Fisher: She was 14 months old.

Susan Wise: My goodness.

Anna Lee Fisher: She was a baby. I was assigned to my flight two weeks before I delivered Kristen. I was very surprised when my boss called me in to offer me a mission, but I wasn’t about to say no—this had been my dream since childhood. I was a new mom and training for my first space mission at the same time. It wasn’t easy, but I was doing the two things I loved most. How many people get to do that? You just figure out what you have to do and make it work.

Susan Wise: I imagine your daughter is immensely proud of you.

Anna Lee Fisher: I’m sure she is. She now covers space for CNN and has her own podcast. I think it’s neat we can share that.

Susan Wise: That’s awesome. What’s the name of her podcast?

Anna Lee Fisher: The Endless Void with Kristen Fisher on YouTube. I’ve been trying to convince her to do a mother–daughter flight on Blue Origin’s New Shepard.

Susan Wise: You should!

Anna Lee Fisher: I’m working on her and my contacts at Blue Origin.

Susan Wise: You started off working in an emergency room—you’re a doctor. That’s how it all began for you?

Anna Lee Fisher: I was the first in my family to go to college. I started at UCLA in math, then switched to chemistry. I’d always wanted to be an astronaut, but it didn’t seem likely, so I aimed for a realistic career goal—medicine. I thought maybe someday I could be a doctor on a space station.

When I was finishing medical training, a friend told me NASA was looking for astronauts—not just pilots, but mission specialists for the new shuttle program. The deadline was a month away. I got the application in the day before it was due, and a few weeks later I was in Houston interviewing. Six months later, I was in the first astronaut class selected for the shuttle program, and the first time NASA accepted women.

Susan Wise: Everything you did put you in the perfect position.

Anna Lee Fisher: It was being in the right place at the right time. I often think, what if I hadn’t gone to lunch that day? I’d wanted to be an astronaut since I was 12, when I listened to Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight in May 1961. It didn’t seem realistic for a woman then, but I never let go of the dream.

Susan Wise: Are you doing anything with the space industry now?

Anna Lee Fisher: I retired in April 2017, but I do a lot of speaking—especially encouraging young people, particularly young women, to pursue STEM. I also serve on the board of advisors for a company tackling space debris. If you look online, you’ll see Earth surrounded by a cloud of debris—functioning and non-functioning satellites. It’s a huge problem, and I feel strongly about helping solve it. I also have five grandchildren now, so between family and space outreach, I stay very busy.

Susan Wise: I love that. We talk about not leaving a footprint on Earth, but we’re leaving one in space as well.

Anna Lee Fisher: Exactly. We haven’t been responsible in the past, but now we’re starting to take steps to fix that.

Susan Wise: Did you have an “aha” moment in your career?

Anna Lee Fisher: My first was at 12, deciding I wanted to be an astronaut. Another was the night my selection was announced. My then-husband (selected in the next group) took Judy Resnik and me out to dinner. Afterward, we stood on her balcony overlooking the ocean and stars, saying, “Did this really happen?” Judy died in the Challenger accident, so I always remember that moment.

Susan Wise: Any advice for listeners?

Anna Lee Fisher: Dream big. Don’t be afraid to aim high, even if you think you’re not capable. Everyone experiences failures—don’t give up if there’s a setback. Follow your dreams, believe in yourself, and don’t accept that something can’t be done just because no one like you has done it before.

Susan Wise: You’re a true role model and inspiration. Thank you for joining us today.

Anna Lee Fisher: Thank you for inviting me.

Susan Wise: If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review and subscribe. Until next time—keep looking up.