Author: Tanya Lee Stone
Almost Astronauts tells the story of a serious attempt to include women in the 1960s space program.
In 1960 and 61, nineteen women went to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to participate in the rigorous tests given to the Mercury program astronauts. Randy Lovelace performed the testing at his family clinic, the Lovelace Medical Foundation, now the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute. After conversations with a number of people, he decided to test women to measure their fitness for space.
A chance encounter with female pilot Jerrie Cobb triggered the experiment. Jerrie had over 7,000 hours flying, many of them while ferrying military aircraft, and had set both altitude and speed records. On paper, she was better qualified then several of the Mercury 7 astronauts. Lovelace’s medical tests showed she was physically better qualified then some of the men, too. Except for that one little issue: In order to apply for America’s astronaut program, you had to be a military test pilot. In order to fly military jets, you had to be male.
Almost Astronauts moves through time to highlight women’s accomplishments in flight. Sally Ride as the first female American astronaut. Eileen Collins as the first female Shuttle commander. Nicole Malachowski as the first female pilot in the Air Force Thunderbirds.
I first heard about the “Mercury 13” program in Disney’s series, “The Right Stuff”. I don’t know if the book’s author Tom Wolff even mentions the women’s testing program. Disney made up an meeting between Trudy Cooper (Gordo’s wife) and Jerrie Cobb. Trudy was not actually one of the women tested, though I’m sure she wanted to.
Wally Funk finally got her chance to fly into space in 2021 on a Blue Origin rocket.
Additional Sources:
Museum of Women Pilots (The Ninety-Nines), in Oklahoma City: https://www.museumofwomenpilots.org/
International Women’s Air and Space Museum, in Cleveland Ohio: https://iwasm.org/wp-blog/kid-korner/
NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/stem/womenstem.html
https://www.nasa.gov/stem/forstudents/5-8/index.html