Promised the Moon: The Untold Story of the First Women in the Space Race

382 Pages·2003·24.11 MB·English

by  Stephanie Nolen

PROMISED THE,
the UNTOLD
STORY of
the FIRST
WOMEN in
THE SPACE
RACE
STEPHANIE NOLEN
$22.95
Stephanie Nolen heard a story about Jerrie
Cobb, and she couldn't let it go: Cobb, a world-
record-setting pilot and a woman, was recruited
in 1959 to take the astronaut tests. At the time,
the United States was losing the space race. The
Soviets had larger, more powerful rockets, and
engineers at NASA thought women—smaller
and lighter—might be the answer to their
problems. Women were also thought to be more
tolerant of isolation and pain.
Randy Lovelace, chair of NASA’s Life Sciences
Committee and the doctor who supervised the
selection of NASA’s Mercury astronauts, and
Donald Flickinger, an air force brigadier general
and pioneer in aviation medicine, came up with
the plan for a woman-in-space program. They
tested Jerrie Cobb, and she excelled on the same
battery of tests that her male counterparts took.
She endured time in an isolation tank and spun
through powerful G-forces. Lovelace recruited
additional female pilots for the tests, and twelve
performed exceptionally.
Stephanie Nolen tracked down all eleven of the
surviving “Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees.’’
From the FLATs, Nolen gets the firsthand story
of those exciting early days of the space race. But
the thrill was short-lived. The thirteen women
who were thought to be prime astronaut
material were grounded in 1961 when the
woman-in-space program was abruptly and
mysteriously cancelled. Until now, the FLATs
never knew why. During a time when a woman
in space was regarded as “ninety pounds of
(continued on back flap)
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2018 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/promisedmoonuntoOOOOnole

PROMISED THE
THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE FIRST
WOMEN IN THE SPACE RACE
STEPHANIE NOLEN
FOUR WALLS EIGHT WINDOWS
NEW YORK/LONDON
SOMERSET CO.
Copyright © 2002 Stephanie Nolen
Published in the United States by
Four Walls Eight Windows
39 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
http://www.4w8w.com
First published in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Ltd.
First U.S. printing June 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a database or
other retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechani¬
cal, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Nolen, Stephanie.
Promised the moon : the untold story of the first women in the space race / by Stephanie Nolen,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-56858-275-7 (he.)
1. Women astronauts—United States—Biography. 2. Women in astronautics—Political
aspects. 3. Feminism. 4. United States. National Aeronautics and Space
Administration—History. 5. Space race. 6. Sex discrimination against women. I. Title.
TL789.85.A1N65 2003
629.45’0082'0973—dc21 2003052770
Printed in Canada
10 987654321
For my grandmother,
Helen G. Amy Webb,
with love
Were very grateful, because now we have a future.
—The Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees to
Lt. Col. Eileen Collins, shortly before
she became the first woman to pilot
the space shuttle on February 3, 1993
Im very grateful, because now I have a past.
—Lt. Col. Collins to the FLATs
CONTENTS
Introduction ix
UNLIMITED VISIBILITY 1
AVIATRIX 14
JACKIE'S GIRLS 31
IN THE COCKPIT 51
INSTANT HEROES 69
UNIT ONE, FEMALE 86
"I'VE GOT TO FLY" 113
NORMAL WOMEN 148
FELLOW LADY ASTRONAUT TRAINEES 166
OUR RIGHTFUL PLACE 202
ABANDONED 247
"LET'S STOP THIS NOW!" 278
Epilogue 308
Bibliography 332
Acknowledgments 343
Index 345