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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.
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.
It is a very good thing that slashdot is banned in the Middle East. Traitors here often discuss advanced technology that could be used by the Islamofascists to improve the deadliness of their makeshift terrorist devices.
Nothing to do with this. White men running NASA, white men running the Air Force, white men running the show could not and would not have a woman beat them to space. End of story. It's pure discrimination. It was widely known that physiologically and psychologically a woman is better suited for space flights. It was just ignored. Just like the claim "they can't fly", in WWII many women pilots proved that they could do the work as well, if not better, than their male colleagues who were busy with things "more important".
Don't forget that the same was true for black and hispanic astronauts. First black astronaut? 1983. First woman astronaut? 1983. First hispanic astronaut? 1980 (Cuba on Soviet flight), 1991 (first American born hispanic astronaut), 1993 (first American born hispanic woman astronaut).
It's all about white men.
Yeah, but now the constant barrage of women denied their place in the sun articles is just feminist propaganda.
The public still isn't prepared to accept female deaths as witnessed by them still not being required to register for selective service and the maudlin stories of women soldiers going through hardships, no doubt, while thousands of men still die nameless.
If we ever have a war where women soldiers return in body bags en mass, that might just be enough to make the public rethink military adventurism for good.
But for now, women can claim the mantle of supposed heroes without ever having to endure the costs.
It's pure discrimination. It was widely known that physiologically and psychologically a woman is better suited for space flights
A statement like 'Women are physiologically and psychologically better suited to cooking" is sexist
But you think what you said isn't discrimination? Holy shit, ignorant feminist minority alert.
Discrimination that likely happened back then is really sad and unfortunate, however saying "Let's fix this and make things proper, and equal, as women are superior" is dumb as shit.
Some men are complete air heads and shouldn't be trusted with a toaster, some women don't know how to tell time on an analog clock.
The opposite is also true. The concept of gender equality is that, some men will be amazing at task A, some women will be amazing at task a.
Some men will be terrible at task A, some women will be terrible at task A.
Individually people are different, some better some worse regardless of gender and people need to start recognizing that.
It's so ignorant when people think that they can rally the support of decent people under the banner of equality, then think they can abuse it, and do the reverse, abuse men, and then they'll still have the support to do it.
It won't happen. The only reason women were treated better and gained equal rights is because back when men held all the power, there were men who were not ignorant and recognized that a women is just as capable as a man, and therefore could influence the other men in power to open their eyes,
And I'm not saying it wasn't without an amazing effort by women before anyone tries to turn it into that. What I am saying, if you can remove yourself from your gender ego issues, is that "Without support from the people in power, the people not in power would not have been able to get the changes to occur."
Also before someone tries some ignorant but the people not in power do control it like how we vote with the government.
No! The people have the power, and anything the government does is by using our combined power based on our votes, we can also strip them of the use of our power. (our being gender neutral here)
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.
Those factors ceased to be relevant when military operations stopped being about people walking a hundred miles on foot and then clubbing each other in the head with heavy bits of metal.
Smaller? Well that means they are a smaller target, you can fit more of them into a transport, they have more room to move around the interior of a fighting vehicle. Strength matters somewhat but smaller people also eat less, and so are a reduced logistical burden.
In terms of speed and endurance, it is far from clear that women are inferior men:
http://faculty.washington.edu/...
Besides, armies are not composed of average men - and they would not be replaced with average women. Differences between men and women *on average* are meaningless. The average soldier can be easily replaced with exceptional women.
True, and no women has had to worry about getting someone pregnant. So there are a few biological differences like that.
But equality is talking about social equality, not the biologicaldifferences or equality.
Tasks that humans in society have come up with that are beyond our biological designs.
In biology, men are designed on average to be stronger and faster than a women, but that doesn't stop a women from being stronger and faster than a man
In fact, based on genetics, some women may naturally be faster and stronger without additional effort.
However on average it will take effort to surpass this