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The Woman Who Should Have Been the First Female Astronaut
StartsWithABang writes We like to think of the Mercury 7 — the very first group of NASA astronauts — as the "best of the best," having been chosen from a pool of over 500 of the top military test pilots after three rounds of intense physical and mental tests. Yet when women were allowed to take the same tests, one of them clearly distinguished herself, outperforming practically all of the men. If NASA had really believed in merit, Jerrie Cobb would have been the first female in space, even before Valentina Tereshkova, more than 50 years ago. She still deserves to go.
At this point we'd just be paying to put an old woman into space in the name of equality. Someone pin a ribbon on her chest, say a formal apology, and let the space program be used for space research rather than as a political platform. The only reason that this stuff is coming up so much lately is Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, anyway.
cos she has no sperm.
(and no I'm not kidding, they tested your sperm to see if you qualified as part of Project Mercury)
The public weren't prepared to accept female deaths - or at least, politicians didn't think they would.
Women performed better in many tests - particularly stress testing, sensory deprivation, etc.
Consisting of a handful of sentences written in 20 point font that failed to support its facts nor conditional, inflammatory conclusion. It is a troll article, like so many from that site.
The point made may be true, but why should a reader spend more time researching the article's sources than the writer themselves did to find the truth?
If the grandma had private parts that were hanging, she'd be grandpa.
The US were behind the USSR in manned space flight at the time, because few cared about the potential of easy gov't money on space research -- the nukes were lining up pockets nicely -- and Herr Wehrner was busy building rockets that would deliver them to Moscow.
Eventually, the US caught up. The people who (mis-)managed the space industry in the USSR had no doubts it will fall behind rather quickly, so they compensated by milking the Vostoks for all they were worth it.
let's send an 83 year old woman into space to satisfy some fucking clickbaiter's need for a political score.
Fuck me, she'd be dead before she clears the tower.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
I was quite happy with the first female spider but that wasn't enough, so the next astronaut was a female monkey!
Oh, please. Tereshkova was nothing but a political stunt (easily demonstrated by the fact that it took twenty years to get another woman into space). She wasn't even a pilot at all at the time when every astronaut candidate was expected to be an already accomplished test pilot. Cobb has more bragging rights that Tereshkova ever had. The same goes for the "Meanwhile, NASA wouldn’t open its astronaut ranks to women until 1978" sentence. The astronaut ranks in the USSR weren't really much better.
outperforming practically all of the men
It's ambiguous whether this means "practically all of the male candidates" or "practically all of the Mercury 7". The former is obvious, the latter isn't mentioned anywhere in TFA, and judging from the numbers ("the top 2% of all candidates", which counted five hundred), it's far from clear that this was the case.
Ezekiel 23:20
It's posts like these that will get even Slashdot banned in the Middle East one day... Well, I say we send the radical islamists to space first.
Cobb has more bragging rights that Tereshkova ever had
That could very well be true, except for that one right the article is referring to -- the right to brag about being the first woman in space. That one belongs to Tereshkova and will, at least until facts mean more than rationalizations.
Love never should have entered;
It was never in the plan.
We were finally going to have her
And let Joe be damned...
-Monsters, Blue Oyster Cult
Ah, it must be election season again, time for the Democrats to trot out their vacuous claims with regard to wealth inequality, the minimum wage, racism, and sexism. My personal favorites are the shrinking middle class and the 22% gender wage gap. People who deny the meritocracy are fucking clueless and it's not surprising to see them vote to maintain the government bubble. Not that the GOTP is much better -- too many egg and sperm worshipping homophobes in the ranks.
It depends. It depends on whether you consider "look what happened to me!" to be worthier than "look at what I achieved in my life through my own skills and determination".
Ezekiel 23:20
NASA did NOT test that group of women, and NOT to the same standards as the original astronauts. The ladies in question were sharp, physically fit, and had pilot's licenses BUT that's nearly the extent of their resume' overlap with the Mercury 7. Every few years some self-styled feminist guy or some ladies' magazine or website pretends nobody knows about ms. Cobb and her obviously unfairly overlooked sisters and then treats a generally ignorant public to tails of these superwomen being better than the men NASA chose but being overlooked because the nation was run by a bunch of "male chauvenist pigs". This is a re-writing of history by people who certainly know better but have outed themselves as unreliable sources of unbiased historical facts.
Jerrie and her fellow would-be lady astronauts were on an "equal rights" political campaign. They set out to prove on their own that they should be allowed into the program and had they been a bunch of men with the EXACT SAME records nobody would have given them the time of day. Instead, over the years, they have been embraced as pioneers for women's rights and become celebrity causes. Government officials, always alert to politics and the need to have support from activists, have given them awards and lots of free complements in speeches (but notably NEVER slots on the astronaut corps, nor even guest roles as shuttle payloads like a couple of members of congress - Senator Garn and Senator Nelson should ring some bells...).
NASA required all the original astronauts to have engineering degress and military flight experience in high-preformance jets (particularly choosing test pilots); this was not arbitrary - they wanted people with a PROVEN record of self control, proven affinity for understanding engineering, and a proven ability to remain calm and observant and carry out technical procedures while facing death. Neither Jerrie nor her fallow would-be lady astronauts fit the bill (just as most male aviators in the US also did not fit). Indeed, had the scope of astro candidates been expanded it still would not have included these women because there were plenty of other male miitary test pilots available with far better qualifications. When you have plenty of candidates who fit your requirements already, you do NOT add-in another set of unknowns and another set of hassles (like the need to deal with male AND female sanitary requirements, the need for a wider variety of spacesuit design features, etc) without some really good justifications. NASA accomodated women much later when it was appropriate - in the shuttle era. Had NASA in the late 1950s had a huge pool of qualified female test pilots and no qualified males, they would have gone with women and added men later.
The Boss ;_;7
In the case of first cosmonauts, female, Russian or astronaut, there is no difference. The first spaceflights 'happened' to all of them -- the Americans were launched by a German, the Russians -- by an Ukrainian.
That reminds me of the old joke about the male athlete who planted someone else's urine to clear himself of doping charges. "We have two good news for you; first, you've been cleared of the charges, and second, you're pregnant."
It happened - was a racing cyclist in the 1970's, possibly in the Tour de France. Dope tests were relatively new then and only used in the topmost races.
The "other person" was his wife. The sample was given in front of a doctor, so "planting" someone else's urine would have been very difficult. The story I heard (as told in the "Cycling" newspaper) was that before the test he emptied his bladder behind the bushes and refilled with his wife's urine via a catheter. AFAIR he was not a top rider, just a lowly domestique desparate to stay in contact with the race. He was certainly not cleared of charges.
Except that I was referring to all the things beyond merely being a bit lucky in the competition. It's the same argument why some groups shouldn't merely get admission standards lowered for affirmative action: nobody knowledgeable about the situation is going to treat them as equals when being aware of the background.
Ezekiel 23:20
I am surprised that the most obvious reason was not mentioned yet:
Nobody wanted to see dead women.
Many deserving or qualified individuals missed out, It also only mentions she was in the top 5%, so was everyone else that went up and so were a lot of others that never got to go up. So because she is female and missed out this is somehow a story? The policy of the day sucked balls, but only a moron would send her up now as one of the most expensive "sorry's" in history.
Wtf happened to Slashdot? There's a story like this posted 5 times a week now, and I'm getting really sick of it. Donglegate, women hula hooping at GitHub, failed female astronauts, and a ton of other non-stories get posted here. And then a million femnazis come out of the woodwork and post as AC in support of the thesis that "All women would be super-rich internet entrepreneurs were it not for the developer-king patriarchs ruling Silicon Valley", ie "Boys are mean and girls are sugar and spice and everything nice".
Walter Isaacson "singles out the achievements of unheralded women" in computing in his latest book, and absurdly pretends that nobody ever heard of Ada Lovelace any credit..
STOP WHINING ALREADY YOU SOUND LIKE A BUNCH OF SPOILED BRATS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It was only partly political, there were hundreds of applicants for the female position, while her political orientation helped, she also met all the specific requirements of the program, NONE of which required being a pilot, it did however require they were qualified parachutists which she definitely was.
As soon as we send some women to the bottom of the ocean too. You know, for equality and exploration and all that space horseshit!!
For many decades now we've had female heads of state (ie Thatcher), female Supreme Court justices, female CEOs of top companies (ie Whitman). At this point, women have done pretty much everything men have done. It's not 1940 anymore. Isn't it time we stop the sexist talk about "female astronauts", "lady lawyers", etc and just talk about astronauts and lawyers? Do we really need to call one of our national leaders a "black woman senator"? She's senator, period. She's neither less than or better than another senator based on her genitalia or her complexion.
The other day I was watching TV and they were talking about the "first black female Puerto Rican pole vault champion" or some such horseshit. She's not the first pole vault champion, nor the first woman, or even th first woman pole vault champion, so give it a rest already. Will you leftists never see beyond anybody's genitalia and complexion?
A fair percentage of early space exploration was entirely political stunts. It was one of the driving forces that made it all happen.
Doesn't mean it wasn't an achievement and Tereshkova has something that no-one can ever take away from her.
--
Now that's a headline. Each ridiculous in their own way.
You're not referring to anything, just trying to come up with crap as to why the Soviet achievement isn't valuable. You're from the same lot that believes the moon hoax, the only difference is your motivation -- you do it because of 'patriotism'. This doesn't make you look any more sophisticated ;)
Let it go, the USSR won the first flights battle half a century ago already.
Right, exactly. What the USSR and the US chose to do in the space race was to symbolize those aspects of their national character that they wished to promote. That the Soviets sent the first woman, made a pretty clear message - that at that time at least, the USSR was ahead of the US in terms of gender relations.
And the U.S. won the race to the moon. I think it's funny you accused the other guy of patriotism and then busted out such a fail of a last sentence. What's your point here? Wah?
"Had NASA believed in randomly allowing people to not meet any qualifications other than the final testing.."
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
Oh, sending a woman into space was 'ahead in terms of gender relations'. So sending a man is automatically sexist? I tell you a secret: Only the most stupid brainwashed sexists think that way.
It depends on whether you consider "look what happened to me!" to be worthier than "look at what I achieved in my life through my own skills and determination".
Wan Hu was determined to go to space. That didn't do much good for him, since he happened to live in 16th century (if at all). It takes more just personal qualities to achieve anything at all, thus evevery achievement has an element of "look what happened to me!". And of course this is all ignoring the fact that while you did indeed earn those skills, the intelligence and discipline required to do so were handed to you by birth and upbringing, both of which simply happened to you.
It takes more than just the end result ot judge the worthiness of an accomplishment. You also have to determine the starting point and any factors influencing the performance along the way. But that might lead to some uncomfortable conclusions about the nature of pure meritocracy, and especially about how fair it actually is, so in practice people simply worship fortune and fame.
You're also assuming that the Soviets simply sent up the first woman who happened to walk past the recruiting office, with the famously reliable Soviet technology eliminating the need for any training or even basic guts, but whatever.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Right. I always prefer 'womanimals'.
....Because none of them had the type of test pilot experience necessary for the Mercury program in the USA or the Vostok program in the Soviet Union..
We forget that at the time of the start of manned flights in 1961, it was an extreme unknown on how well an astronaut would handle a spacecraft in Earth orbit. As such, both the Americans and Russians chose trained test pilots, who had the ability to calmly handle any dangerous situation during a test flight. And in those days, only men met that qualification. It wasn't until the middle 1970's that both the Americans and Russians--based on their spaceflight experience--finally figured out how to choose females to become astronauts/cosmonauts on something besides a publicity stunt.
outperforming practically all of the men
It's ambiguous whether this means "practically all of the male candidates" or "practically all of the Mercury 7".
The only important data is whether she outperformed one single male in the Mercury 7: Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper and Deke Slayton.
If she didn't, the entire topic is sexist.
If she did, the program was sexist.
If it wasn't known either way, the program was sexist, because it should have been known prior to selecting among the candidates.
to be fair, that last bit happens (so far as i can tell) all the time with baseball. i don't really watch it, but a friend has it on sometimes, and the commentators are always saying stuff like "first homerun on a thursday evening in september against boston with a runner only on second with a southeasterly breeze and a guy in the stands behind homeplate wearing electric orange pants". some people seem to just like to makeup or quote inane statistics, especially relating to sports.
And Christina McAuliffe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christa_McAuliffe) and the "teachers in space" program wasn't a political stunt?
Snopes isn't so sure. "We haven't yet found a verified news report of a drug testee whose cheating was exposed when urinalysis revealed him to be pregnant. (Pregnancy tests aren't a standard part of the drug screening process.)"
Yeah the same thing bugs me when watching football (handegg ). I get excited for half second when the announcer says Manning just set a record, then goes on to say it's the record for most completed passes in the first quarter of a home game in Denver against a team with a winning record on the road. Wtf.
Shoulda been the first black astronaut, shoulda been the first gay astronaut, shoulda been the first handicapped Muslim Mexican astronaut and so on. But that's not how the world works.
This is an outrage. I say we need to get a woman up into space as soon as possible. What? Women have been to space? OK, then I think we need to have a female pilot a spacecraft. Oh, that's been done too. Now it is time for a female mission commander. Already been done? What we really need is to have a female mission commander and a female ISS commander at the same time. No! that's been done too? Arrrgghhh. We need to setup a time when only females are in space and no men. Only then can we be equals.
Parent has it right. All early spaceflight was about political stunts. The USSR used it to send a positive political message: one of gender equality (well, Gagarin was still the first, but women weren't all that far behind). The US sent a negative one: only men get to go to space.
There is a place for pointing out system biases, because by nature they are difficult to perceive, except for the people who are actively and in bad faith looking for them. But the basic fact about systemic biases is that they are statistical and never a reflection on an individual.
But it is true that Western societies have passed the point where a person from an identifiable group achieving something is any kind of achievement for that individual. The "first black female Puerto Rican pole vault champion" is not overcoming unique challenges now that they would have had to in the past.
We can celebrate, not that we have reached a point of equality, but that we have long since reached that point without noticing.
You think the first astronauts invented rockets and the necessary physics themselves?
Different countries - different standards. For example by Soviet standards Alan Shepard's flight was just a political stunt, because the flight was merely suborbital.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Jerrie Cobb's biography does not include any college or university education. Highly ranked male aviators/pilots were also passed over because the didn't have a college/uni degree. Col. Chuck Yeager, probably our best pilot at the time, did not have a college/uni degree and was passed over. So Jerrie Cobb was not passed over because of her gender, as the various articles implied, but because she didn't meet the listed qualifications. Tough luck based on her "bad" planning.
The article sounds like sour grapes from someone who didn't meet the qualifications and, now in the age of Political Correctness, is whining. All the females gaining flight time on the shuttle were college/uni graduates. No discrimination here that I can see.
In Jerrie Cobb's biography page, there is no mention that she attended college/uni or graduated college/uni. A college/uni degree was a requirement and Jerrie Cobb didn't meet the requirements. Male pilots were disqualified for the same reason. There wasn't any "system biases". Just an unqualified, though talented, applicant. And this is coming the pro-Jerrie Cobb forces on the Internet.
"Tereshkova was nothing but a political stunt "
So was the entire manned space program, on both sides...
Easy path for her to achieve her dream: legally change her name to Jayne, then get all the Whedon fans to pay her way into space. Jerrie is too obviously a female name, anyway.
Of course it was. Worked great, didn't it?
Any psychologist would have field day with Freud.
I cannot imagine what the management on her woman-needs would be like.
Thatcher was head of government, not head of State. That was (is) Queen Elizabeth II... so, still a female head of state, but it wasn't Thatcher. Just sayin'.
(captcha inequity... i hate the world these days)
500 candidates, she made it to the 98th percentile. Even if two of the Mercury 7 dropped dead just before takeoff, she would not have gone to space. Nine people were ahead of her. Seven of those nine went to space. The only reason we are talking about her and not the other two that outperformed her is because of her gender. That doesn't seem intellectually honest to me.
My point, which is stated quite clearly above, is that both USSR and the US advanced human space exploration enormously and that denigrating the achievements one side, regardless of the motives, with idiotic 'arguments' of the kind you use, is moronic.
I don't think that the USSR were making any particular statement about gender politics. They were simply looking to score another 'first'.
There's also a suspicion that their statement was that their space industry was so advanced, that they could send up even a woman. So the exact opposite of a positive gender equality message.
Freud would have a field day with all these nerds who've never been near a woman before and refer to them as "females", as if they were studying some kind of animal.
"Female" is age-agnostic. "Woman" is specific to adult females, you inconsiderate ageist.
Good (or pedantic?) point. Since I come from a country where the head of state, head of government, and head crook are the same office, I tend to think of all national heads as "head of state".
This just in: human beings ARE "some kind of animal".
The politics on gender equality have created a lot of zealots that are pushing propaganda of various kinds. We see it every day... And while I do believe in the equality between the sexes, I do not believe in advocacy for either of the sexes.
There is a lot of advocacy going on in this general topic and I have no patience for it because it is ultimately dishonest.
Do women deserve to compete against men? Sure. Join the male Olympics and tell me how well you do there. Sound unfair? That is competition. It isn't about fair. And when you're talking about enduring space travel under physically demanding circumstances... physicality matters.
Que the hordes of political advocacy trolls. I acknowledge again that women should be given an EQUAL shot at these things. Equal. Not subsidized. You put your finger on the scale to bias the results and I will cut that fucker off and feed it to you.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
There were 110 candidates screened from 500 applications, from which they selected 7, or about the top 6% of the screened candidates. She scored in the top 2% of candidates. So, practically all of the male candidates, and most of the mercury 7.
That, or he had testicular cancer:
http://jezebel.com/5959232/pre...
I'm a woman and sick of this spotlight being thrown on my gender constantly as if we feel so low that we need an ego boost.
cosmopolitan media-shops bought-up slash-dot, Toms Hardware and Ars Tek there's a steady stream of bytch-dike drool from the mags
That would explain a lot, but which media-shops do you mean? Afaik, /. is owned by Geeknet.
And can I have a slice of pie too please?
Seriously, what a pointless post.
This. A British athlete with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome tested positive for an unfeasible amount of testosterone the male equivalent is having too much estrogen and another hormone found in pregnant women.
And not only a woman a factory worker at that proving that the Soviet Union was better than the decadent west.
Yes she was passed over due to sexism, indirect though since they were only accepting military pilots (who were only male). The article says towards the beginning:
Although they were certainly deserving, well-qualified and capable, there was a better candidate than many of these men who was passed over for all the wrong reasons.
Okay, a valid thesis except...
The Lovelace Clinic was where a series of physical and mental tests...were performed on the candidates to determine their fitness for space. The first crew, the aforementioned Mercury 7, were chosen from among the top performers.
But about a year later, Lovelace became curious about how women would perform on this same test...
Thirteen American women...were selected to participate in the three phases of testing. Jerrie Cobb was the only one who passed them all.
So Jerrie Cobb took the test after the Mercury 7 crew were selected. They weren't picked over her, because she at the time was not known to be as qualified or better.
Further the last line of the quoted section is false. 19 women were selected to participate in the testing (recruited by Lovelace and Cobb). 13 passed the first phase, which was what the Mercury 7 passed. Three were taken to do additional testing phase II testing, the women excluding Cobb were unable to do the second phase tests due to other family and work commitments. And Cobb was the only one to take the final phase III testing.