Trivia

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) is dedicated to her memory (the movie was filmed between February-May, 1986) as well the rest of Challenger crew died in the disaster (Gregory Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe, Ron McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Francis 'Dick' Scobee and Michael J. Smith).

Classically trained pianist who, as a young woman, briefly considered a career in music.

In October of 2024, the Akron Board of Education approved a plan to place a rocketship memorial plus bronze statues of Resnik and Jean Hixson in front of the Resnik Community Learning Center.

Multiple educational facilities are named in honor of astronaut Judith A. Resnik, including Judith A. Resnik Elementary School in Gaithersburg (Maryland), the Judith A. Resnik Community Learning Center in Akron (Ohio), and Judith A. Resnik Middle School near San Antonio (Texas). Carnegie Mellon University-Resnik's alma mater-also commemorates her with Resnik House, a residence hall, and a memorial plaque at the base of Hamerschlag Hall.

Her name appears on numerous public memorials and landmarks across the United States, including Judith Resnik Memorial Park at Melbourne Beach (Florida), the Challenger Seven Memorial Park near Houston (Texas), and the Challenger Crew Monument in Seabrook (Texas). Several roadways also bear her name, such as Judith Resnik Drive in El Paso (Texas), Judith Resnik Court in Las Vegas (Nevada), and Judith Resnik Avenue in Sacramento (California).

Resnik is honored on NASA's Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy Space Center (Florida) and beyond Earth as well: the lunar Resnik Crater (approximately 20 km diameter, far side, within the Apollo basin) and main-belt asteroid 3356 Resnik are both named for her by the International Astronomical Union. A crater named "Resnik" appeared on Soviet maps of the planet Venus in 1986 but was never formally adopted.

Resnik was a fan of actor Tom Selleck. During STS-41-D she placed a bumper sticker on her locker reading 'I (heart) Tom Selleck', visible in the well-known 'Hi Dad' photo. She also owned a coffee mug reading 'Excuse #1: I'm saving myself for Tom Selleck'. According to astronaut Mike Mullane's memoir Riding Rockets, her Discovery crewmates placed a Tom Selleck poster in the shuttle's bathroom as a joke, which she discovered once in orbit. She later invited Selleck to the STS-51-L launch, though he declined.

In 1966, she was the only woman in the United States to earn a perfect 800 on the mathematics section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test and only the sixteenth women ever to achieve a perfect score.

As a student at Akron's Firestone High School, Resnik was a member of the National Honor Society, the French club, the chemistry club and was the only girl among fifteen boys in the math club.

Resnik earned her private pilot's license in 1977, achieving near-perfect scores on her flight exams (two 100s and a 98). Although she was a licensed pilot in civilian terms, she was not a NASA-rated pilot and flew in the back seat of the agency's T-38 trainers. Contemporary and posthumous reporting sometimes described her as "working on a pilot's license" (Time Magazine, 10 February 1986), likely referring to her efforts to pursue advanced ratings and/or NASA flight qualification.

A classically trained pianist, she practiced piano an hour a day as a child, though sometimes she hated it. Later she said of her playing "I never play anything softly.".

Donald Nutter, Resnik's math teacher at Firestone High School in Akron, OH told Time Magazine "I can still see this little, short brunette in bobby socks and saddle shoes, quiet as a mouse. If you had a question no one else could answer, you could call on her.".

Along with her STS-51-L crewmates, she was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor on 23 July 2004 by President George W. Bush, recognizing her "exceptionally meritorious efforts and contributions to the welfare of the Nation and mankind." As of 2025, she was the fourth of five women to receive the medal.

Her father, Dr. Marvin Resnik, said that Judith often repeated the motto, "The luckiest people are the ones who work the hardest." He cited it as her personal philosophy in interviews after the Challenger accident.

During the maiden voyage of Discovery (STS-41-D, 1984), Resnik leaned toward crewmate Mike Mullane and whispered, "There are no maidens on this flight." The line became one of the crew's inside jokes, referring to NASA's description of the mission as Discovery's "maiden flight.".

As a child in Akron, Ohio, Resnik had a pet dog named Pansy.

As a teenager, after her parents' divorce, Resnik petitioned an Ohio domestic court to transfer custody from her mother to her father; the petition succeeded.

For mission STS-51-L, Judy's Personal Preference Kit contained small mementos, including a heart-shaped locket for her niece, a signet ring for her nephew, and a 24-karat gold Dunhill cigarette lighter belonging to her friend and former high-school boyfriend, Len Nahmi. After the Challenger disaster, Nahmi filed a $600 property claim with NASA for the loss of the lighter. Under the agency's policy that Personal Preference Kit items were carried "as a courtesy" and at their owner's risk, the claim was denied. No items from Resnik's kit were ever recovered.

Resnik was raised in a Jewish household in Akron, Ohio. Her father, Dr. Marvin Resnik, described himself as "an unbelieving Jew" but served for seven years as High Holy Day cantor at Congregation Beth Israel in Washington, Pennsylvania. He arranged Judith's Bat Mitzvah at age 13 and sent her to Hebrew school at Beth El Synagogue. In later interviews, he said that Judith identified culturally as Jewish but did not practice religion, recalling that she would say, "Of course I'm Jewish, but I don't practice it. Religion does not enter into my life.".

Post-accident analysis of Challenger's debris showed that the personal air packs of mission specialists Dr. Judith Resnik, Lt. Col. Ellison Onizuka(USAF), and Cmdr. Michael J. Smith (USN) had been manually activated after the orbiter's breakup, indicating that some of the crew survived the initial explosion and remained conscious for part of the descent. Because the activation switch for Smith's pack was located behind his left shoulder and out of his own reach, investigators concluded that it was likely activated by Resnik, who was seated behind him.

Early in the Teacher in Space program, Resnik reportedly asked a fellow astronaut, "What are we supposed to do with these people?", reflecting her initial skepticism about sending non-astronauts such as teachers and politicians into orbit. According to The Burning Blue (Kevin Cook, 2021), Resnik later changed her mind after seeing how enthusiastic and dedicated Christa McAuliffe and Barbara Morgan were, and she later developed a close friendship with McAuliffe while helping her with mathematics training.

While earning her electrical engineering degree at Carnegie Mellon University, Resnik was a member of Alpha Epsilon Phi, a national Jewish sorority founded in 1909.

When NBC's Tom Brokaw asked her in a 1981 interview whether she had experienced chauvinism at NASA, Resnik replied, "Not at all. As a matter of fact, I think everyone leaned over backwards to make sure that we were treated as equals.".

Resnik was the first Jewish woman to travel into space, and many sources also describe her as the first Jewish person in space. She was the second American woman astronaut to fly (after Sally Ride), was the fourth woman overall in space. She reportedly told her father she wanted to be remembered not as a "Jewish astronaut" or "woman astronaut," but simply as "just another astronaut, period.".

Although she was the first Jewish person to travel into space, Resnik did not request kosher meals for her missions. She identified culturally as Jewish but did not practice religion, according to her father, Dr. Marvin Resnik.

She made a friendly wager with NBC's Tom Brokaw during the countdown of another early Shuttle flight, betting that the launch would occur on schedule while he bet that it would not. When she won, he sent her a six-pack of beer wrapped in a dozen long-stemmed red roses. Resnik called to thank him, saying, "Brokaw, I liked the six-pack better than I did the roses.".