List of Married Couples Among Space Travelers - Milestones

Milestones

Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space on 16 June 1963. She set a further precedent when on 3 November 1963 at the Moscow Wedding Palace she married fellow cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev (1929–2004), the only bachelor to have flown at that time. Nikita Khrushchev himself presided at the wedding party, together with top government and space program leaders.

In the United States, the first married astronauts were Anna L. Fisher and William F. Fisher, who already were a married couple by the time they were selected by NASA in 1978 and 1980 respectively. Their first child was born in 1983. When Anna L. Fisher flew aboard Discovery on STS-51-A in 1984, she became the first mother in space.

The first NASA astronauts to marry after being accepted into the Astronaut Corps were M. Rhea Seddon and Robert L. Gibson, who married in April 1981.

The first married couple to fly in space together were N. Jan Davis and Mark C. Lee who both served as mission specialists aboard Endeavour on STS-47 in September 1992. Lee and Davis had met during training for the flight and had married in secret. They disclosed their marriage to NASA shortly before the flight, when it was too late to train a substitute. NASA has since changed the rules and will not allow married astronauts on the same flight.

Three of the women who married fellow space travelers also hold the distinction of being the first female representatives of their country to reach orbit. These are Valentina Tereshkova (USSR/Russia), Sally K. Ride (USA) and Claudie Haigneré (France).