McDougle: We have an awesome team here. Flight Crew Equipment as a whole but especially Crew Escape Equipment, which is our department,...

McDougle: Exactly. Then I got older, got married and had kids. I decided to go to school at night after work. I think I did about four...

McDougle: No, first black woman. Another female suit tech was here when I got here. You can believe she was highly upset that she didn’t...

McDougle: It was so much more fun being a suit tech because you’re out doing stuff, interacting. Now you’re always tied to your...

McDougle: We have a Stericide [disinfecting-sterilizing solution] that we use to clean the suits. We take the suits into the drying...

McDougle: We could have two to four crews in training at one time. Let me show you what the schedule looks like, which is blank pretty...

McDougle: I didn’t watch everything because she wasn’t doing any spacewalks. I hate to say I was only interested in what she was doing....

McDougle: Launch was so exciting. Landing was what I remember the most. I’m glad you asked me that. We have to sit on the CTV [crew...

McDougle: Yes. I was like, “What haven’t you done? Can you cook?” This is another [shows photo]. I think this was her tenth anniversary....

McDougle: It meant that we finally made it once again, another achievement under a black woman’s belt. I do feel it’s more special to me...

McDougle: We have to do an unpressurized and pressurized leak check before they go make sure nothing happened on the way to the pad. We...

McDougle: Class 1 is the flight equipment. It can go into space. Class 3 will not ever go into space and that is strictly for training....

McDougle: First meeting with Mae was her fit check, because they all have to come and get fit checks first so we’ll know what size...

McDougle: Never met her, and it didn’t matter. I still would have taken good care of her because I wanted her to do well and feel safe....

McDougle: Yes, it was awesome. There were so many awesome women at that event. I thought I was just going to go to a school and do a...

This is STS-37 , and they always signed pictures to us. That’s me working my first flight. I was just a baby. I took these with my own...

We just suited them up, took care of the crew members, waved at them when they walked out, and then we recovered them on landing. We...

NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History ProjectEdited Oral History Transcript Sharon Caples McDougleInterviewed by Jennifer...

Everyone knows that Dr. Mae Jemison was the first African American woman to travel into space – but many don’t know that an African...

Suiting up astronauts is an out of this world career path and a local woman had the opportunity to do it for 22 years! Her name is Sharon...