for NASA to use on its missions. She disliked the part of her job that required making public appearances and drumming up support for the space program. She avoided television interviews when possible, and resented intrusive questions about her private life, such as questions about her divorce. Other astronauts felt that either Resnik or Sally Ride would become the first woman in the group to fly in space, as they received the sorts of technical assignments that best prepared them for flight, such as capsule communicator (CapCom) duties. The shortlisted candidates for the mission specialist assignments for the STS-7 mission included all six women, but since the mission involved the use of the RMS, the choice of the first to fly on the Space Shuttle narrowed to Resnik, Ride and Anna Fisher, who had specialized on it. Resnik was considered best qualified, but was passed over in favor of Ride because it was felt that Resnik was less comfortable with public affairs issues, and the first American woman to fly in space would attract an unusual amount of public interest. STS-41-D In February 1983, Resnik was assigned to the crew of STS-41-D, the twelfth Space Shuttle flight, the maiden voyage of the , along with Henry Hartsfield, Michael Coats, Steven Hawley and Mike Mullane. During a visit to a contractor's factory, Resnik whispered to Mullane: "there are no maidens on this flight". She was the center of attention on such visits, and one contractor engineer became a stalker, sending her unwelcome letters, poems and gifts. Eventually, after he appeared in the office, he had to be dealt with by NASA security. After Hawley and Mullane had a fawning encounter with actor Bo Derek, who was working on the film Tarzan, the Ape Man, Resnik started calling Mullane "Tarzan" and Hawley "Cheetah"; when the office secretaries heard about this, they began referring to the STS-41-D crew as the "zoo crew". Resnik was a fan of the actor Tom Selleck, and had a coffee cup that said: "Excuse No. 1: I'm Saving Myself for Tom Selleck." Her crewmates hid a poster of Tom Selleck behind the bathroom curtain on Discovery. The STS-41-D mission's launch was delayed three times. The first attempt, on June 25, 1984, was aborted due to a failure of the backup computer. The following day, during the second attempt, the computer detected a fault in one of the Space