Right stuff, wrong gender --

[Saint in Paradise]

-- the true story of the women who almost went to the moon.

In 1995, when astronaut Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot a space shuttle, she saved front row seats for some very special guests:

a group of 13 women who almost went to the moon.

 

The Mercury 13, as they were dubbed, were a part of a privately-funded program in the early '60s to see how female pilots would fare taking the

same tests as the Mercury 7 astronauts. Even though the women in many cases surpassed the men's results, NASA shut the Mercury 13 program

down in 1962, and the world seemed to forget about these 13 women — until Collins credited these trailblazers for paving the way, and brought their

story to the forefront.

 

The program started out in 1960, after Dr. Randy Lovelace, who designed the astronaut training program for NASA, got an idea for a science experiment.

He wanted to see if women could pass the same physiological tests as the men. After all, weight was the biggest problem for NASA at the time, and

women typically weigh less than men. His first subject was Geraldyn "Jerrie" Cobb.

 

Cobb was considered one of the top pilots in the world. She flew her first plane at the age of 12. At 19 she was teaching men how to fly. At 21 she was

delivering military planes to Air Forces worldwide. She set world records in speed and distance, and was the first woman to fly at the Paris International

Air Show. By the time Dr. Lovelace brought her to his clinic, the 29-year-old had flown 64 types of propeller aircraft, racked up three world aviation records

and 7,000 flight hours.

 

Jerrie Cobb passed all three phases of astronaut testing — the first American woman to do so, ranking in the top two per cent of all astronaut candidates

of both genders. Lovelace put out a call to more female pilots to see how they could hack it, in a privately-funded, unsanctioned program.

 

For the rest of the story :-

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/right-stuff-wrong-gender-the-true-story-of-the-women-who-almost-went-to-the-moon-1.4636802

[Hamilton Saint]

Interesting. This brings to mind the film "Hidden Figures", which is about female African-American mathematicians working at NASA in the 1960s.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures