Kathy Sullivan, the NASA astronaut who 36 years ago became the first American woman to walk in space, has now become the first woman to reach the deepest known spot in the ocean.
On Sunday, Dr. Sullivan, 68, an astronaut and oceanographer, emerged from her 35,810-foot dive to the Challenger Deep – the lowest of the many seabed recesses that crisscross the globe. This makes her the first person to both walk in space and to descend to the deepest point in the ocean.
Dr. Sullivan and Victor L. Vescovo, an explorer funding the mission, spent about an hour and a half at their destination, nearly seven miles down in a muddy depression in the Mariana Trench, which is located 200 miles southwest of Guam.
After capturing images from the Limiting Factor, a specially designed deep-sea research submersible, they began the roughly four-hour ascent.
In 1978, Dr. Sullivan joined NASA as part of the first group of U.S. astronauts to include women. On Oct. 11, 1984, she became the first American woman to walk in space.
Upon returning to their ship, the pair called a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station, around 254 miles above earth.
“As a hybrid oceanographer and astronaut this was an extraordinary day, a once in a lifetime day, seeing the moonscape of the Challenger Deep and then comparing notes with my colleagues on the ISS about our remarkable reusable inner-space outer-spacecraft,” said Dr. Sullivan in a statement.
