Kristin was born at 9.30am on a Friday and I turned up at Johnson Space Centre in Houston for a meeting at 8am on the Monday — August 1, 1983. When I was eight months pregnant Nasa had assigned me to fly on the space shuttle Discovery — and I wanted all my colleagues to know that although I’d just had a baby, I was definitely going on that flight the following year. Fortunately, Kristin was a very easy baby.
It was different for Kristin but when I was growing up women’s career options were nurse, secretary or teacher. But as a child I’d heard Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut, talk from space on a crackly radio to mission control. I wanted to be just like him. The problem was that in 1961 I was a shy, skinny kid. I thought I didn’t have the “right stuff”, so I kept quiet.
Later I studied medicine in California — I met Bill Fisher, my future husband, at medical school — and was all set to be a surgeon, but then Nasa’s space programme came back to life after the Apollo era. Bill and I were fascinated by space and both applied for the new space shuttle programme, along with 8,000 others.
I was invited to an interview in Houston the same week we were due to marry, so we shifted the date. I told the panel on the way out of the room that I really wanted to be an astronaut but wanted a family too.
Anna Lee with Kristin in Houston, 1985
NASA
Of the group of 35 successful candidates, I was one of six women. There was so much media interest in us it felt uncomfortable. I just thought, don’t screw up. Bill was very good-natured about not being selected in that first group, even though it must have been hard. He had to wait until 1985 for his own mission on Discovery.
Some people were very hostile about me going to space. They thought it was wrong for a mother to leave her 15-month-old child to do something so dangerous. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done — but several of my male colleagues were in orbit when their kids were born and nobody criticised them. Thank God we didn’t have social media. My mission, in November 1984, lasted almost eight days and I thought about my daughter a lot. The journey back home was like a wild rollercoaster ride. I was so happy to see Kristin again.
Just over a year later I lost seven friends in the Challenger disaster, when the shuttle broke up just after launch. That put Nasa’s space programme back years, effectively halting my second scheduled flight, aboard Columbia. I was in my late thirties, so we decided to have another child, Kara. She now has three children of her own and lives nearby in Houston.
After six years’ leave of absence I returned to work in 1995. It was tough leaving the girls. Nasa was a different workplace: people were using computers and I needed to get up to speed. By then Bill and I weren’t getting on so well. [They divorced in 2000.] But I have space in my blood, so I just got my head down. I helped on the International Space Station and developed instruments for the Orion spacecraft. I still get excited at a launch.
Former astronaut Anna Lee Fisher on leaving her daughter Kristin to go into space
Kristin became a TV presenter, working for Fox News at the White House and then as CNN’s space and defence correspondent. She covered the all-female Blue Origin space flight earlier this year, with Lauren Sánchez and Katy Perry on board. They called themselves “astronauts”; I think we should have a different title for someone who pays a lot to go into space. But it is still risky, so I applaud them for going up.
Kristin’s now 42 and the kindest, most fun person to be around. She’s also an amazing mum. Although she lives in Washington, she has interviewed me many times. Quite often she wears an Earth-and-stars necklace I gave her; it’s a replica of the one I wore on Discovery all those years ago. My amazing experience in space changed my life but I’m grateful I’m still here to enjoy my family.
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Kristin
Space exploration seemed kind of boring and normal when I was a kid. Everyone in our Houston neighbourhood worked for Nasa. We’d often take our boat across Taylor Lake to have dinner with John Young and his wife, Susy. John was an absolute legend — he had commanded Apollo 16 and walked on the moon.
I huffed when we had to watch every rocket launch at home. It could be 2am before a school day — Mum would wake Kara and me up. It’s always a scene when Mum watches a launch. Ten, nine, eight she’s getting more and more excited. Five, four, three, two, one. She has this ridiculous saying: “Godspeed, go, go, go.” I remember being 13 or 14 and thinking, oh my God, Mum, get it together, you’re so embarrassing. But it was her friends on those shuttle missions and she should absolutely have been cheering like that. Now I do it with my two kids.
With Anna Lee’s father, Bill, 1983
COURTESY OF ANNA LEE FISHER
It wasn’t until I went to college in Boston that I realised how special my childhood had been. Early in my freshman year I tried magic mushrooms for the first time and I had an epiphany: “Holy shit, my parents are astronauts!” It was midnight when I called home: “Dad, oh my God, you went to space. What was that like?” He was a kid in the 1960s, so I think he knew what I was doing. He laughed and said, “Kristin, go to bed, call me in the morning and we’ll talk about it.” That night completely changed how I viewed space and my parents. I hadn’t appreciated what badasses they were.
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Mum and Dad made videos of us all before they went into space. Just ordinary stuff — bike rides and playing in the swimming pool, in case anything happened. I get so emotional when I watch them now. Mum and Dad both had this incredible passion for space that shaped their lives. It was difficult when they got divorced but I’m still close to them both.
I spent much of my childhood running away from space but eventually I was lured back. After a dream job as White House correspondent, I realised that what I really wanted was to cover space. I felt burnt out on politics and persuaded CNN it was the right time for me to be their space correspondent. One of the coolest interviews I did was with Mum, Buzz Aldrin and Vice-President Mike Pence, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 in 2019.
I’d love to be an astronaut one day, but only as a passenger. For Mum it was a promise she made to herself and her country. I’m eternally grateful for the example she set.
Once Upon a Time in Space is on BBC2 at 9pm on October 27. A book of the same name is out now (BBC Books £27). Order at timesbookshop.co.uk. Discount for Times+ members
Strange habits
Anna Lee on Kristin
I thought I was tidy but she’s a neat freak. She also has the loudest laugh
Kristin on Anna Lee
Mum’s 76 but still talks in Nasa acronyms and keeps astronaut-like checklists. If she babysits there’s a 20-point plan for putting the kids to bed