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The Woman Who Should Have Been the First Female Astronaut

Posted by timothy on from the actually-my-grandmother-would-have-been-great-at-it-too dept.

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.

3 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Eh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Eh by Imrik · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Isn't the lesson to use the best people regardless of gender? In which case, why should she go instead of someone more qualified?

  2. Re:The mention of Valentina Tereshkova is ridiculo by gsslay · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.