Nicole Aunapu Mann is scheduled to be the first Native American women to fly into space and the first female mission commander of a NASA commercial spaceflight next month. She will oversee the SpaceX Crew 5 mission to deliver four astronauts (including, at this point, one Russian cosmonaut) to the International Space Station aboard Crew Dragon.

If you’ve read any or all of my novels in the People of the Water Cycle, you’ll understand why I’m both overjoyed and feeling that this is LONG overdue.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-5

Nicole Aunapu Mann, shown in 2018 photograph / NASA