NASA’s First Woman comic book series. NASA: 2021, 2023.

In March of 2025, and in the onslaught of institutions wrestling with their previously lauded DEI initiatives now under fire from the administration, NASA removed two comic books from its website in a series: First Woman. The first volume, First Woman, NASA’s Promise to Humanity, Issue No. 1 Dream to Reality, was published online in a free-to-print and digital format in 2021, and the second volume, First Woman, NASA’s Promise for Humanity Issue No. 2 Expanding our universe, in 2023. The comic books were produced by NASA in collaboration with the National Institute of Aerospace. While the books were deleted from the NASA website, the interactive app experience is still available via the app store. The comics include QR codes and app interactivity for an educational experience that lets readers look up terms like “space weather” and “lava tunnels” as they read along.

The first volume introduces Callie Rodriguez and her AI sidekick robot RT. Callie, the first woman on the moon, has a small team of RT and an assistant, Dan Patel. Working out of a base on the moon, Callie recounts her childhood and life growing up, first as the daughter of an auto mechanic, where she first got her love of engineering, and then as the only daughter of a single mother after her father died. Her parents speak Spanish to her growing up, with the comic including small Spanish phrases. Callie went to school, had good jobs and okay jobs, then found herself at prestigious universities before applying four separate times to be an astronaut. She finally got an interview, showcased her AI skills with her trusty robot, and now leads a moon-top mission. Volume 1 leaves us on a cliff hanger literally, with Callie dangling on a rope to escape a solar storm.

Volume 2 has Callie safely back at the moon mission headquarters explaining how she survived the solar storm. As the first woman on the moon, Callie speaks to up-and-coming astronauts who ask her questions, like Michael, a young boy from the Choctaw community, and Amaya, a young woman depicted as a person of color. Along with Callie is Meshaya, another female astronaut and former Coast Guard pilot, who works under Callie on various moon missions. After the Q & A, Callie, Meshaya and French-Canadian Martin take their own mission to fix a tech issue on the moon’s surface. After Martin gets injured, Meshaya and Callie work together and solve the problem to get him back to the base safely for medical attention. Meshaya, shows she has what it takes for a leadership position, flashes forward and becomes a First Woman herself, on Mars!

The First Woman series is a fictional portrayal of the future meant to inspire a group of future leaders from diverse backgrounds to get into aeronautics. The comic book is playful, with comic relief coming from robot RT, who mostly speaks in movie sound clips, and low stakes. Geared towards an elementary-age audience, it features mostly people of color in leading aeronautics roles and includes real-life setbacks and perseverance that anyone seeking to be one of the most revered professions nationally – an astronaut – would naturally go through. The scrubbing of the comic book from NASA’s website in response to contemporary Executive Orders due its centering on people of color and women shows the negative ramifications of these anti-DEI measures. Fortunately, librarians and archivists saved it – it’s available on Wikimedia, the Wayback Machine, and Soundcloud.1

Alexandra Acri Godfrey (agodfrey@os.pasen.gov), Librarian of the Senate of Pennsylvania, Senate of Pennsylvania

References

1. Wikimedia contains archived PDFs of both English and Spanish versions of the two issues of the comic.
   • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Woman_issue_1_Dream_to_Reality_original.pdf
   • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Woman_issue_2_Expanding_Our_Universe.pdf
   • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Woman_issue_1_Dream_to_Reality_Spanish.pdf
   • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Woman_issue_2_Expanding_Our_Universe_Spanish.pdf

Please note that the Internet Archive capture loads slowly, but offers additional content not included in the PDF downloads of the comics.

• https://web.archive.org/web/20250228012642/
• https://www.nasa.gov/calliefirst/

An audio version of the first issue is available via Soundcloud.

• https://soundcloud.com/nasa/first-woman-issue-no-1-dream-to-reality