Who was the first civilian non-military in space?

Answer 1

It depends on what you mean by non-military. Neil Armstrong had once been in the Navy, but was not in the military at the time he was inducted into the Astronaut core and went into space.

If you mean the first person who had never been in the military, it was two people who when on the same flight. They were Byron Lichtenberg and Ulf Merbold -- payload specialists on the first Spacelab mission. Lichtenberg from MIT and Merbold from the Max Planck Society/Institute.

Correction: Byron K. Lichtenberg was in the US airforce as a fighter pilot.

Ulf Merbold was a German "defector" who left Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Anyway the first civilian in space was:

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, who was also the first woman in space aboard the U.S.S.R mission Vestok6 on June 16, 1963.

The first U.S woman in space was to be Christa McAuliffe who died aboard the Challenger explosion on January 28th 1986.

I believe she was to have been the first civilian. But her death pretty much consolidated opionion that it was to be military or government personel only. I'm not sure any U.S citizen (as in NEVER been in the military or held government office) has ever been to space from a launch on U.S soil.

This view is also held by the creators of the popular Stargate SG1 series of the time where there were many stories revolving around the US Military's strangle hold of the project in much the same was as reflected in the fictional series.

Answer 2

Christa McAuliffe was the first civilian non-military individual to fly in space. She was a high school teacher selected for the NASA Teacher in Space Project and died tragically in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.