Star Trek’s Lt. Uhura—Nichelle Nichols—will fly on NASA’s airborne observatory

During an IAmA on reddit last week, actor Nichelle Nichols—known to many as Communications Officer Lt. Uhura on the original Star Trek—revealed she's preparing to fly on an official NASA mission at the age of 82. She won't be going into space, however. The television pioneer will instead work with the SOFIA mission, NASA's initiative involving the world's largest airborne observatory.

"SOFIA does not, sadly, fly into space," Nichols told fans during the online Q&A. "It's an airborne observatory, a massive telescope mounted inside a 747 flying as high as is possible. I was on a similar flight, the first airborne observatory, back in 1977. It's an amazing experience, you get a totally different perspective than from Earth. I do hope someone gets some great pictures."

Nichols later clarified on celebrity fundraising site starpower.co that her previous airborne observatory experience was the Keiper Airborne Observatory, "which I also had the honor being able to fly on and even operate the equipment!" She hinted that she's working with NASA to see if there's a way to allow "VIP fans supporting the great causes" on starpower.co to share in the event with her. According to Nichols, the flight will take place in September.

Since May 2014, SOFIA has used a "a Boeing 747-SP aircraft modified to accommodate a 2.5 meter gyro-stabilized telescope" to make observations ground-based telescopes simply can't. Among the entities NASA monitors through this, the agency lists star birth and death; formation of new solar systems; planets, comets, and asteroids in our solar system (including recent Pluto work); and black holes at the center of galaxies.

Nichols has been involved with NASA since the 1960s when she became an official ambassador. Primarily, Nichols worked to recruit women and people of color to become astronauts (CNN notes Nichols played a role in the careers of people like Sally Ride and Charles Bolden, the current NASA administrator). Her groundbreaking role as Lt. Uhura undoubtedly factored into that opportunity. While on Star Trek, Nichols executed TV's first interracial kiss, earned the praise of Martin Luther King Jr., and utilized what could be seen as a pop culture precursor to the iPad and other tablets.  In recent years, even President Obama was eager to give a Vulcan salute alongside Nichols.

Also revealed in the IAmA, Nichols mentioned she'd be open to participating in the most recent reboot of the Star Trek series. "It would have to be a very specific part, and I'd have to agree with the role. I can't imagine being completely OK with the Star Trek story without Gene [Roddenberry, original Star Trek producer], however."