Women of Space

At first this post was just going to feature the names of women who've been in space, but since part of my inspiration was the amazing Katherine Johnson, that just didn't seem right (the other inspiration was explaining to my 8-year-old why Valentina Kerman is named Valentina).
And so, here's a list of women from space-exploration history. :)
(with a surprisingly few number of repeating names!)

Female astronauts who've been in space:

• Anna (Lee Fisher)
• Anousheh (Ansari*--first Iranian-American)
• Barbara (Morgan)
• Bonnie (J. Dunbar)
• Catherine (Coleman)
• Chiaki (Mukai*--first Japanese woman)
• Claudie (Haigneré*--first French woman)
• Dorothy (Metcalf-Lindburger)
• Eileen (Collins*--first female Shuttle pilot and commander)
• Ellen (S. Baker, Ochoa*--first Hispanic woman)
• Heidemarie (Stefanyshyn-Piper)
• Helen (Sharman*--first Briton)
• Jan (Nancy Jan Davis)
• Janet (L. Kavandi)
• Janice (E. Voss)
• Joan (Higginbotham)
• Judith (Resnik*--first Jewish-American woman)
• Julie (Payette)
• Kalpana (Chawla*--first Indian-American)
• Karen (L. Nyburg)
• Kathryn (P. Hire, D. Sullivan, C. Thornton)
• Laurel (B. Clark)
• Linda (M. Godwin)
• Lisa (Nowak)
• Liu (Yang*--first Chinese woman)
• Mae (Jemison*--first African-American woman)
• Margaret (Rhea Seddon)
• Marsha (Ivins)
• Mary (L. Cleave, E. Weber)
• "Megan" (Katherine Megan McArthur)
• Millie (Hughes-Fulford)
• Nancy (J. Curry)
• Naoko (Yamazaki)
• Nicole (P. Stott)
• Pamela (Melroy)
• Peggy (Whitson)
• Roberta (Bondar--first Canadian woman)
• Sally (Ride*--first American woman)
• Samantha (Cristoforetti*--first Italian woman)
• Sandra (Magnus)
• Shannon (Lucid, Walker)
• Stephanie (Wilson)
• Sunita (Williams)
• Susan (J. Helms, Kilrain)
• Svetlana (Savitskaya*--first woman to spacewalk, as well as make multiple space trips)
• Tamara (E. Jurnigan)
• Tracy (Caldwell Dyson)
• Valentina (Tereshkova*--first woman in space)
• Wang (Yaping)
• Wendy (B. Lawrence)
• Yelena (Kondakova, Serova)
• Yi (So-yeon*--first Korean)

Other notable women:

The 'Mercury 13'--a group of female pilots who independently took the first phases of astronaut testing, hoping to prove that women could go to space--

• Bernice (Steadman) 
• Gene Nora (Stumbough)
• Irene (Leverton)
• Jane (Hart)
• Janet (Dietrich)
• Jean (Hixson)
• "Jerri" (Geraldine Sloan)
• "Jerrie" (Geraldyn Cobb)
• Marion (Dietrich)
• Myrtle (Cagle)
• Rhea (Hurrle)
• Sarah (Gorelick)
• "Wally" (Mary Wallace Funk)

The original Soviet female candidates (minus the previously mentioned Valentina Tereshkova)--

• Irina (Solovyova)
• Tatyana (Kuznetsova)
• Valentina (Ponomaryova)
• Zhanna (Yorkina)

In NASA--

• Irene (D. Long--first female chief medical officer at Kennedy S.C.)
• Jocelyn (Gill--NASA in-flight science chief, 1961-73)
• Katherine (Johnson--probably the most well-known of NASA's "human computers")
• Susan (G. Finley--started as a computer; currently the longest-serving woman at NASA: 1958-present)

Just a small sampling, of course! NASA currently has several female astronaut candidates, scheduled or waiting a turn, and many also retired without getting their chances; and of course NASA today employs many, many women in a  variety of positions. And I definitely didn't have room for the full list of NASA's "human computers", many of whom were African-American, but you can find one here: CRGIS. :)