Three of NASA's first NASA astronaut recruits to speak at Space Center Houston this week

Thirty-five years after Sally Ride became NASA's first woman in space, three of the first female space agency recruits will speak at Space Center Houston on Thursday.

The pioneering trio – Shannon Lucid, Rhea Seddon and Anna Fisher – was part of a group of six women hired for the 1978 astronaut class – the first year the space agency allowed women.

Ride was also in this class of astronauts, but died in 2012 from a cancer. After marking history in 1983 by becoming the first American to live in space, she took over the space shuttle before hanging up her spacesuit.

Despite the accomplishment of Ride, NASA was 20 years behind the Soviet Union in sending a woman into space. In June 1963, Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova traveled around the world 48 times.

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Tickets for the retired astronaut conference are free and can be booked here.

Here is more information about women talking Thursday:

• Shannon Lucid: Now 75, Lucid flew to space five times, between 1985 and 1996, during his career at NASA. One of these trips was a six-month stay on the Russian space station, Mir, which was disorbitated in 2001. She was the first woman to hold an international record for most flying hours in orbit by a non-Russian . most flying hours – 5,354 – in orbit by a woman until June 2007.
• Rhea Seddon: Now 70 years old, Seddon flew on three shuttle flights from 1985 to 1993, where she accumulated 722 hours in space. After leaving NASA in 1997, she was chief medical assistant at the Vanderbilt Medical Group in Nashville for 11 years.
• Anna Fisher: Now 68, Fisher flew in the Space Shuttle once, in 1984, where she recorded 192 hours in space. She then held numerous positions for NASA in the field, including the head of the International Space Station branch during her construction and she worked on display development for Orion, the spaceship being built for take humans to Mars.

Judy Resnik and Kathryn Sullivan were also part of this class of 1978 astronauts. Resnik died in the Space Shuttle Challenger 1986 crash, with her six crew members, when the spaceship exploded just 73 seconds into her. flight

Sullivan flew on three Space Shuttle flights between 1984 and 1992, recording 532 hours in space. She is now a director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Alex Stuckey covers NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at [email protected] or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.