Today I Found Out

The Race to Space and the Incredible, Forgotten "Mercury 13"

In the early days of the U.S. Space Program, most remember the legendary Mercury 7 with the "Right Stuff." What's less well remembered is another group who were rigorously tested alongside the Mercury 7, the Mercury 13, comprising all women, in tests to see if women, too, had the right stuff for space exploration, and indeed, if perhaps they were even better suited for men to go to the moon, stereotypically being better at multitasking, needing fewer calories, lighter, etc. Here now is the story of the largely forgotten Mercury 13 and why these women were not allowed to go to space. On February 14, 1960, Geraldyn “Jerrie” Cobb arrived at the sprawling Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and prepared to make history. At age 30, Cobb was already one of the world’s most accomplished female pilots, having been the first woman to fly the Paris Air Show and holding three world records for speed, distance, and absolute altitude for light aircraft. But all these accomplishments paled next to the challenge that now lay before her, for Cobb was about to brave the same battery of medical tests that had been used to select the Mercury Seven, America’s first astronauts. On December 17, 1958, more than a year after the launch of Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite, the newly-formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced the creation of Project Mercury, America’s first manned space program. The goals of Project Mercury were to place a man in orbit, evaluate whether he could effectively live and work there, and return him safely to the earth. Yet despite these relatively modest aims, the technological challenge was immense, with much of the required technology - from rockets and spacecraft to guidance and life support systems to a worldwide orbital tracking system - having to be adapted from existing military equipment or developed from scratch. Yet the greatest unknown was the human who would occupy the spacecraft itself - the astronaut. In the late 1950s, little was known about the effects of spaceflight on the human body, with doctors variously speculating that microgravity might disorient and incapacitate an astronaut, cause their eyeballs to deform, or make swallowing food impossible. Given these unknowns, at first NASA struggled to decide just who to send into space. While a variety of candidates were initially put forth including circus performers, race car drivers, mountaineers, deep-sea divers, and other adventurers, in the end the selection committee narrowed their focus to an altogether rarer breed: military test pilots. Test pilots, NASA reasoned, were already tough, resourceful, cool under pressure, and accustomed to handling experimental vehicles under extreme conditions. Based on this decision the committee produced a set of selection criteria which were distributed to all military test flying establishments. According to these requirements, the ideal astronaut candidate was under 40 years old and 5 feet 11 inches in height, married, in peak physical condition, a qualified jet test pilot with at least 1500 hours flying time, and possessed a bachelor’s degree in engineering.... Author: Gilles Messier Host: Simon Whistler Editor: Daven Hiskey Producer: Samuel Avila