Golden Jubilee celebration Oct. 3 in Alamogordo will also honor Nobel laureate Michel Mayor, NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson and pioneering aerospace nurse Dee O’Hara

Organ Mountain News report

ALAMOGORDO - The New Mexico Museum of Space History will celebrate its 50th anniversary this fall by inducting a class that includes the pioneering Mercury 13 women, astronaut twins Mark and Scott Kelly and several other figures whose work helped shape space exploration.

The museum’s Golden Jubilee and International Space Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be held Saturday, Oct. 3, at the Tays Special Event Center in Alamogordo.

The 2026 induction class also includes Swiss astrophysicist and Nobel laureate Michel Mayor, NASA mathematician Creola Katherine Johnson and Dolores “Dee” O’Hara, the first aerospace nurse assigned to America’s original astronauts.

The inductees were selected from 45 nominees worldwide.

O’Hara, who recently turned 91, is expected to attend the ceremony. Katherine Johnson’s grandson Michael Moore will attend on her behalf, while New Mexico author and space historian Loretta Hall will accept the honor for the Mercury 13.

“It is an honor and a privilege to welcome the Selectees to Alamogordo for the Induction Ceremony,” museum Executive Director Karen Kincaid Brady said in a news release.

Brady said O’Hara remains an inspiration to nursing professionals and noted that Moore continues his grandmother’s legacy through his own career and the Katherine Johnson Foundation.

From Mercury 13 to the Kelly twins

The Mercury 13 were 13 American women who underwent privately funded astronaut screening tests in 1959 and 1960.

All were accomplished pilots with more than 1,000 flight hours. Although they performed as well as, and sometimes better than, male candidates during testing, they were not admitted to the astronaut program.

The testing program was run by William Lovelace II, whose clinic was in Albuquerque and who is himself a member of the International Space Hall of Fame.

One member of the Mercury 13 eventually reached space: Wally Funk, who flew aboard a Blue Origin flight in 2021, more than six decades after the original testing.

Mark and Scott Kelly will be honored for careers that included NASA’s landmark Twins Study.

Researchers compared Scott Kelly while he spent nearly a year aboard the International Space Station with his identical twin Mark, a retired astronaut who remained on Earth. The study examined physiological, molecular and cognitive changes associated with long-duration spaceflight.

Scientists, mathematicians and space medicine pioneers

Mayor, a professor emeritus at the University of Geneva, shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics for work that included the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, the first planet found orbiting a sun-like star outside the solar system.

Johnson spent 33 years working first for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and later NASA. Her calculations were critical to Project Mercury and later crewed missions, including work involving launch windows, orbital trajectories, emergency return paths and Apollo rendezvous calculations.

She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.

O’Hara became the first aerospace nurse assigned to the Mercury astronauts in 1959 and later supported the Gemini, Apollo and Skylab programs.

She was the nurse for the Mercury Seven astronauts and their families before moving to what became Johnson Space Center, where she established the Medicine Flight Clinic. Her career also included work on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and the first space shuttle flight.

Museum celebrates five decades

The museum opened in 1976 as the International Space Hall of Fame, with a mission to recognize achievements that advanced humanity’s understanding and exploration of space.

Now known as the New Mexico Museum of Space History, the Alamogordo institution is marking five decades of preserving space history and highlighting New Mexico’s role in the U.S. space program.

“To participate in the selection of these truly inspirational people has been a deeply humbling experience,” International Space Hall of Fame Foundation Chairman Cliff Hudson said. “The dedication and commitment each has had to their chosen career field is exemplary and worthy of this honor.”

The Oct. 3 Golden Jubilee will include a cocktail hour, dinner, keynote speaker, induction ceremony and silent auction.

Tickets are $90 per person, with museum members receiving a 10% discount.

Tickets and sponsorship information are available at nmspacemuseum.org and spacehalloffame.org. For information, email info@spacehalloffame.org.