Therese Thompson

“To repair the agency’s standing with potential applicants, NASA brought on a celebrity spokesperson—none other than Nichelle Nichols, the former Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek. Relentless in her recruitment efforts, Nichols made her case across fifteen colleges and universities, thirty-four professional organizations for women and minorities, and in nearly forty radio and television appearances, like the one Ron McNair had seen.81,82 By the end of Nichols’s campaign, NASA was buried under eight thousand applications.”
― Meredith Bagby, The New Guys: The Historic Class of Astronauts That Broke Barriers and Changed the Face of Space Travel – NASA's 1978 Women and Minority Pioneers Through Triumph and Tragedy