Mission Specialist(Akron, Ohio)
Resnik, 36, became the second American woman in space, after Sally Ride, on a 1984 mission aboard the shuttle Discovery. She was a classical pianist and also the first Jewish astronaut. She joined the space program in 1978.
Resnik trained on the shuttle's robot arm; on the 1984 flight, she used it to delicately break away a chunk of ice that had formed on the side of the spacecraft.
She received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University and a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland.
After college, Resnik was a research scientist for RCA, then the National Institutes of Health and later for Xerox.
Resnik was single.