Pride Month – Wendy Lawrence, U.S. Navy Officer and NASA Astronaut

Wendy Lawrence has been a trailblazer in both her professional endeavors and personal life. She was a member of only the second class in the history of the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) to include women. Lawrence went on to pursue a record-setting career as a naval aviator. As a NASA astronaut, she became USNA’s first female graduate to fly into space.

Lawrence achieved yet another notable milestone when she was given the USNA Distinguished Graduate Award in 2019. It was on this occasion that Lawrence publicly disclosed for the first time that she was married to former NASA scientist Cathy Watson.

Sally Ride, who made history in 1983 as the first American woman to fly into space, has the distinction of being the first known LGBTQI+ astronaut. Ride’s sexual orientation was not publicly disclosed until after her death in 2012, when her obituary revealed that science writer and former professional tennis player Tam Elizabeth O’Shaughnessy had been her partner of 27 years. Lawrence was therefore the first living astronaut to make known her LGBTQI+ status.

Wendy Lawrence was born on July 2, 1959, at the hospital at Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida. Wendy’s father William Porter “Bill” Lawrence was a decorated U.S. Navy vice admiral and her mother Anne Lawrence was a preschool teacher.

Wendy Lawrence graduated from Fort Hunt High School (subsequently merged into present-day West Potomac High School) in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1977. Following in her father’s footsteps, she entered USNA later that same year. During her time as a midshipman, Lawrence played a key role in forming the first women’s crew (rowing) team at USNA. She also served as deputy brigade commander. In 1981, Lawrence graduated 12^th in her class with a B.S. degree in ocean engineering.

After completing flight school, Lawrence was designated as a naval aviator in 1982. In the course of her overall military service, she logged more than 1,500 hours of flight in a total of six types of helicopters and made at least 800 shipboard landings.

Lawrence further established herself as a naval pioneer when, during her time with that military branch’s Helicopter Combat Support Squadron SIX (HC-6) in Norfolk, Virginia, she became one of the first two female helicopter pilots to make an extended deployment to the Indian Ocean as part of a carrier battle group. Her other flight assignments include serving with Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light 30; and – as the pilot of a Boeing-Vertol H-46 helicopter – providing logistical support for oceanographic surveys off the coasts of Kenya and Puerto Rico’s island of Vieques.

Lawrence also found time to continue pursuing her education. In 1988, she earned an M.S. degree in ocean engineering from a joint program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Lawrence returned to USNA in 1990, this time as an instructor. She taught leadership, physics, and underwater acoustics, and also coached the women’s crew team.

Throughout her longstanding military service, Lawrence did not openly divulge her sexual orientation. During her first several years in the Navy, such a disclosure would have been grounds for a non-heterosexual person like herself to be discharged from the U.S. military. This policy was replaced in 1994 by the “don’t ask, don’t tell” directive. That new directive, which remained in place until 2011, prohibited military personnel from discriminating against closeted non-heterosexual individuals but still barred from military service any of those individuals who publicly revealed their orientation or identity. 

Another milestone for Lawrence occurred in 1992, when NASA selected her as an astronaut candidate. She eventually underwent a year of training at Johnson Space Center in Houston and qualified for flight assignments as a mission specialist. For Lawrence, all of this was a childhood dream come true. As she recounted in a 2017 Museum of Flight interview as part of an oral histories project, Lawrence found herself enthralled by the momentous Apollo 11 mission in July 1969. She was especially mesmerized while watching the live TV coverage of two of those Apollo 11 astronauts becoming the first people to walk on the Moon.

“I can’t tell you what it was about watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin go out for the first time and take those incredibly historic steps on the surface of the Moon,” Lawrence said during that interview, “but again, like a lot of astronauts around my age, we were hooked, eyes riveted on the screen, and that’s when the dream began.”

Lawrence’s first journey into space was as a member of the crew aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour for the STS-67 mission in March 1995. During this 16-day mission, Lawrence and her fellow crew members conducted round-the-clock observations of phenomena such as the polarization of ultraviolet light emanating from distant galaxies and hot stars.

In 1997, Lawrence made her next trip into space as a member of the crew on the Space Shuttle Atlantis mission STS-86 flying to and from the Mir space station. This mission began with the launch of Atlantis on September 26 and ended with that spaceplane’s return to Earth on October 8. 

Lawrence flew into space again the following year, this time as a member of crew on the Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-91. This mission, which took place in June, marked the final Space Shuttle flight to and from the Mir space station.

Lawrence’s fourth and final spaceflight was as a member of the crew aboard Discovery for the STS-114 mission during the summer of 2005. This flight to and from the International Space Station (ISS) was both daunting and poignant for everyone involved. This is because it was the first Space Shuttle mission since the STS-107 mission in 2003. That mission ended tragically on February 1 of that year when Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into earth’s atmosphere. This disintegration resulted in the deaths of all of the astronauts on board.

The STS-114 mission proved to be a successful “Return to Flight” initiative, with Lawrence and her fellow crew members transporting more than 11,000 pounds (4,989 kilograms) of cargo to ISS. They also tested and evaluated new safety procedures for space shuttles that were developed in the aftermath of the Columbia disaster.

Altogether, Lawrence logged a total of 51 days, three hours, and 56 minutes in space during the four missions in which she took part. She retired from NASA in June 2006 and from the Navy that September.

Over the years, Lawrence has received several awards for her achievements. These awards include the United States Astronaut Badge, given to military and civilian personnel for spaceflights; the Defense Superior Service Medal, a military decoration of the U.S. Department of Defense; the NASA Space Flight Medal; and the Captain Winifred Quick Collins Award for Inspirational Leadership, presented by the Navy League of the United States.

Lawrence now lives in Ferndale, Washington, with her spouse Mary, and serves on the advisory board of the University of Washington Bothell. Lawrence is also a strong advocate for STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education for young women.

During her 2017 Museum of Flight interview, Lawrence was asked what advice she had for those aspiring to be astronauts. “To walk down the path,” she responded. “Yeah, it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be long, it’s going to be challenging, and there are going to be a lot of times where you don’t think you can do it. But you have to be able to persist. Because making your dream come true is a process, and it, as I said before, can be a very long process. So you have to develop this mindset that it’s one step at a time.” Lawrence added, “And you have to be constantly thinking about what should the next several steps be.”

Photo Credit: NASA

For more information on Wendy Lawrence, please check out https://www.usna.com/events-and-programs—dga19-bio-lawrence and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZabqdx_Iy8