Yes, MLK saved Uhura—and she brought diversity to NASA's real space faces

Dot-connecting time to Star Trek, on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day: 

Yes, MLK "saved" Uhura, via Nichelle Nichols' famous tale—but that in turn allowed, and led directly 10 years later, to her incredible NASA outreach mission and some of our most iconic faces in space, giving us the diverse shuttle corps we came to know—and some real-life IDIC in action.

In Star Trek's own way....THANKS one more time, Dr. King.

Nichelle Nichols On Gene Roddenberry

And Dr. King's Fateful Advice

     FORBES.COM — BY MICHAEL VENABLES 

"… As a result of Nichelle Nichols’ efforts of space exploration evangelism work over the last four months of 1977, NASA received 8,400 applications, 1,649 from women and nearly 1,000 from minorities. 

Here is the NASA leader who is responsible for inspiring the recruitment of Sally K. Ride, the first American woman in space, Judith A. Resnik, the second U.S. female astronaut and first Jewish-American in space, Mae Jemison, the first African-American female astronaut (in TNG role with Nichelle, above), Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian-American in space and the first African-African American male astronauts, Guion Bluford and Ronald McNair.

Nichols' charismatic recruitment method increased the number of applications from women sixteenfold, and from people of color thirtyfold."

20 years ago: When EXACTLY did Voyager premiere?

VGR Premiere Program

Well, that 's a misleading headline—of course, for most of the world, we all know that Voyager premiered with its pilot "Caretaker" on Monday, Jan. 16, 1995—as the ballyhooed flagship of the newly birthed United Paramount Network. As such, for the first time since the original series, as a "network show" its airdate would be on a uniform date and time, unlike the scattered "week of" airdates of syndicated TNG and DS9. (Mostly).

But six days earlier, Jan. 10, saw a special studio premiere at the on-lot Paramount Theater, complete with some press and a celebrity guest to kick off not only the first network Star Trek since TOS, but the first to be led by a woman.

In special remarks beforehand, co-creators Rick Berman, Michael Piller (at left) and Jeri Taylor all spoke about their feelings on the occasion of this newest Trek, as did star Kate Mulgrew—who then introduced an equally historic figure from the real space universe—Dr. Sally Ride, America's first female astronaut, who had flown twice on the shuttle during the 1980s, and who since has sadly passed away of pancreatic cancer far too soon, in 2012.

As a symbol of bonding between historic women of the real and fictional universe, Kate presented her that night with an actual Voyager combadge, making her an official member of Voyager's crew and with the hardware so that Ride could "beam up to the ship any time" she wished. We carried the event in Communicator #100.

And with those words, after a small press posing event, the Paramount Theater darkened while cast, crew, studio honchos, guest and press all saw "Caretaker" for the first time. Pilots and premiere episodes always hold such promise and hope, unaware how succeeding seasons just might unspool, or for how long... but everyone that night was a-marvel at, truth be told, how it was seemingly the best Star Trek pilot yet for character conflict, potential drama, scope and visual effects.

Reverse of VGR premiere program

On a personal note, we had barely been in L.A. for five months, and the prospect of present for a front-row seat to watch a new Trek series launch was exhilarating with its fresh-faced, fandom-naive cast (well, all but for boyhood Trek fan Tim Russ, who knew best of all exactly what he was getting into.) Thus you can imagine my chagrin when all my photography—taken on 35mm Kodachrome slides in the pre-digital age—was mostly ruined thanks to a new Burbank neighborhood photo lab that used old chemicals, and threw off the color of almost all my photos taken that night. (The top two are among the rare pics salvaged). I never did THAT again—but I've been heartbroken ever since that I did not have my shots to archive, from an event not exactly as mangy with photogs as you'd expect.

Along with those, enjoy the premiere program card I scanned here—and no, those are not printed signatures, and no, it is not going in the Trekland Trunk any time soon!

RIP Sally Ride—but do you know her big Star Trek Moment?

It was January 10, 1995, and Star Trek: Voyager was just days away from becoming not only Star Trek's first true network series since the orignal... but also the first in the franchise to feature another groundbreaking casting choice: a female captain, Kathryn Janeway.

For the highly anticipated cast and crew premiere screening at Paramount, the UPN honchos and Voyager co-creators Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor (in background) joined new lead Kate Mulgrew—whose Janeway role had been the brainchild of Taylor—and made sure to make a little history that night as well.

Who else to honor on such an auspicious night for the world's biggest space adventure and its first female regular captain .... than America's first female astronaut and high-flying gender pioneer, Dr. Sally K. Ride?

(I was there that night in the front press row, a recent arrival in LA myself, and I'm danged if I can locate my good original photos this second. Instead, here's the studio photog's image we ran in Communicator/Issue 101—so apologies for the print-screen.)

Ride passed away today of pancreatic cancer at 61, having made her mark at age 31 in 1983 as American's first woman in space, and then-youngest ever, at age 32. She left NASA in 1987 after nine years and one more mission, with a third mission postponed by the Challenger disaster and her sitting on the accident's review commission. She resigned to work at Stanford's Center for International Security and Arms Control, as her spot in history will always be assured.

But back on the Paramount Pictures main theater stage in 1995, after honoring Ride for such contributions to space exploration, Mulgrew presented her with a plaque and combadge from the show's sets so Ride "could beam up whenever she felt the need to." In line with the historic mutual love affair overall between Star Trek and NASA—America's fictional and real-life space heroes—Ride's remarks that night revealed she was suitably touched and honored to be a part of another landmark for women in culture.

Ride even had a second and earlier link to the franchise, of course, in that she was in the group of new astronauts chosen from among women and minorities recruited by the NASA program Nichelle "Uhura" Nichols headed in the 1970s-80s.