Back in August we reported that 82-year-old Nichelle Nichols would soon become one of the first-ever non-essential personnel to fly as part of NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) mission, and now the intrepid space explorer has the pics to prove it!

Nichello joined the SOFIA mission on Tuesday, September 15th, and described the experience on her blog Starpower:

This SOFIA flight will be observing star-forming regions, first in the constellation Sagittarius, then Aquila and Cygnus. They’ll be utilizing radio telescopes to detect emission from ionized hydrogen produced by young stars. Finally, we’ll be looking at a protostar in Taurus.

If Nichols looks fairly unfazed in that picture, it’s likely because these kinds of missions are old hat to the 82-year-old–Nichols also flew in the first-ever airborne NASA observatory back in 1977.

(via Blastr, image via Women of Star Trek on Facebook)

—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—

Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

Have a tip we should know? tips@themarysue.com