Roberta Bondar

Roberta Bondar is a Canadian neurologist and astronaut, born December 4, 1945, who was selected as one of six members of the original Canadian Astronaut Corps in 1983 and began training the following year. She flew her only spaceflight aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-42 in January 1992 as a payload specialist, performing more than 40 experiments in the Spacelab module to study how microgravity affects the human body, becoming Canada's first female astronaut and the first neurologist to travel to space. She later led an international NASA research team for over a decade studying the body's recovery from spaceflight, including neurological effects related to Parkinson's disease, and was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada.