Patricia Cowings is a NASA research psychologist who taught astronauts to control their own bodies well enough to stop being sick in space. She was the first American woman to receive scientist astronaut training.
She never flew. That fact is central to her story rather than a footnote to it, and it is the part most retellings get wrong.
Who is Patricia Cowings?
Patricia S. Cowings is an aerospace psychophysiologist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. Psychophysiology is the study of how mental states and body systems affect each other.
She was born on 15 December 1948 in the Bronx, New York City. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1970, and a doctorate in psychology from the University of California, Davis in 1973.
The National Archives states plainly that “Dr. Cowings is the first American woman to receive scientist astronaut training” (National Archives). She trained in 1979 as an alternate, and the flight assignment went to someone else.
NASA describes her as a research psychologist in the Biomedical Division at Ames, investigating the psychophysiological and biological problems astronauts experience in space (NASA).
A correction worth making
The claim: Patricia Cowings is sometimes described as the first Black woman in space.
Why it persists: She was the first American woman trained as a scientist astronaut, and “trained as an astronaut” gets shortened to “astronaut” as the story is retold.
The correction: Cowings completed scientist astronaut training but never flew a mission. Mae Jemison became the first Black woman in space aboard the shuttle Endeavour in 1992.
What to do with that: Keep the two women distinct. Both matter, and conflating them erases what each actually did.
What problem was she solving?
Space motion sickness is a real operational problem. Astronauts arriving in orbit can experience nausea, vomiting, cold sweats and disorientation, and it costs working hours at the most expensive moment of a mission.
Medication has a cost too. Anti-nausea drugs cause drowsiness, and a drowsy astronaut is a liability on a schedule measured in minutes.
Cowings asked a different question. Instead of treating the symptoms with chemistry, could a person be trained to control the body responses that produce the sickness in the first place?
How Autogenic Feedback Training works
Autogenic Feedback Training Exercise, or AFTE, teaches voluntary control over body functions that people normally cannot control on purpose.
The method combines two older ideas. Autogenic training uses mental suggestion, where you evoke a sensation such as warmth or muscle relaxation. Biofeedback puts a live readout of your own body in front of you, so you can see whether it worked.
NASA describes the training this way: subjects learn “to mentally evoke a sensation, like relaxation of muscles, to bring about desired physiological changes such as increased skin temperature or relaxed muscles,” watching the results on an oscilloscope. NASA states the method lets trained subjects regulate as many as 26 physiological functions related to motion sickness.
The constraint that made the design hard was time. Astronaut training hours are scarce and contested, so a method requiring months was never going to be adopted. Cowings compressed it into 12 half-hour sessions, a total of six hours.
NASA patented Autogenic Feedback Training in 1997 (National Archives).
Where the work went
Cowings served as a principal investigator on three Space Shuttle flight experiments, and as the primary American collaborator on an experiment flown aboard the Russian space station Mir.
The method did not stay inside the space program. NASA has since documented work transferring Autogenic Feedback Training to military applications, including airsickness in high-performance aircraft, through its Technical Reports Server.
One boundary to state clearly: AFTE is a training method studied in specific operational settings, not a general medical treatment. It is not a cure for motion sickness, and nothing on this page is medical advice.
Why this story works in a classroom
Most biographies of scientists end in a triumph. This one does not, and that makes it more useful.
- The experiment she designed outlived the flight she did not get. Her method flew on missions she stayed home from.
- Constraints drive design. Six hours was the budget. The six-hour limit shaped the entire method.
- Psychology is a laboratory science. Students who think psychology means asking people how they feel meet a version of it built on instruments and numbers.
For another scientist whose path into spaceflight ran through training rather than fame, see our page on Valentina Tereshkova. More profiles sit in biographies, and the science behind the body systems she trained is in our science section.
Quick facts
| Full name | Patricia S. Cowings |
|---|---|
| Born | 15 December 1948, the Bronx, New York City |
| Field | Aerospace psychophysiology |
| Education | BA psychology, SUNY Stony Brook, 1970. PhD psychology, UC Davis, 1973 |
| Employer | NASA Ames Research Center |
| Known for | Autogenic Feedback Training Exercise (AFTE) |
| First | First American woman to receive scientist astronaut training |
| Patent | Autogenic Feedback Training patented by NASA, 1997 |
| Missions | Principal investigator on three Space Shuttle experiments, plus a Mir experiment |
Sources
- National Archives. Celebrate International Day of Women and Girls in Science with NASA Trailblazers.
- NASA. Patricia Cowings: Using Science to Conquer Space Sickness.
- NASA Technical Reports Server. Transfer of NASA Technology to the DoD: Mitigating Motion Sickness with Autogenic Feedback Training Exercise.
- Wikipedia. Patricia S. Cowings, biographical dates and degrees.