A New E-book Explains the Delay in Hiring Women as Astronauts

Find out how NASA’s astronaut choice course of has advanced.
 

In her new e-book, On a Mission: The Smithsonian History of US Women Astronauts, Valerie Neal confirms what we’ve identified all alongside: Astronauts—whether or not males or girls, civilian or army—are extraordinarily excessive achievers, typically incomes a number of superior levels in science, engineering, medication, or arithmetic. These accomplishments are thought-about necessities for the job, and but NASA didn’t allow impressively credentialed girls into the astronaut corps till 1978 (greater than 15 years after Alan Shepard launched into area). Sally Ride turned the primary American lady in area on June 18, 1983. Since then, 60 extra American girls have traveled to area as astronauts. Neal, a curator emerita from the National Air and Space Museum, gives a culturally insightful historical past of the experiences of those girls astronauts, the challenges they’ve confronted, and their distinctive tales. Her e-book makes a convincing case for the complete participation of ladies in area, a lot in order that they don’t need to be known as “female astronauts” or “women astronauts.” They don’t contemplate themselves an astronaut subset—they’re merely “astronauts.” Neal was not too long ago interviewed by Air & Space Quarterly’s senior editor Diane Tedeschi.

NASA’s first girls astronauts—the category of 1978—felt that they may not fail. How did they deal with the strain?

The main means they dealt with the strain was to do the work with out asking for or accepting any deference as females. They had been insistent that they be handled no otherwise than the males they usually needed to be seen as “one of the guys.” To make the purpose, they determined to decorate in khaki pants and polo shirts like the boys, they usually usually averted calling consideration to themselves as girls—avoiding attire, make-up, nail polish, and so on.—mainly suppressing their femininity within the work setting. They studied onerous, practiced onerous, labored onerous to enhance any expertise they wanted, and by no means complained or requested for any concessions. Everyone—ladies and men—went via the identical coaching and obtained the identical technical assignments and alternatives; fairly naturally some astronauts excelled at one process or one other, however everybody had the identical probabilities to show themselves.

Why was Sally Ride chosen to be the primary American lady in area?

No revealing data have surfaced of the particular resolution, however hypothesis and anecdotal observations by contemporaries shed credible gentle on the query. By most accounts, Sally Ride and Judy Resnik had been contenders to fly first, based mostly on their early assignments to assist develop and check the distant manipulator system (robotic arm) for use on sure area shuttle missions. Both had been confirmed workaholics and spent many hours mastering these expertise. Ride was then the primary lady chosen to be a CapCom (speaking with the orbiting crew from a console within the Mission Control Center), an expertise that the majority astronauts describe as the very best job, nearly like flying a mission in area, so intently are CapComs concerned in every little thing occurring in orbit.

Ride’s friends perceived that she was on a quick monitor to a flight task. She was additionally identified for the composure she had developed as a aggressive athlete, nationally and on the collegiate degree; she was accustomed to strain and a focus. Although she didn’t welcome media consideration, she managed to deal with it with aplomb and with out missteps. Ride and Resnik in all probability had been intently ranked in technical expertise, however Ride might have had a slight edge in persona and composure. The decision-makers had been conscious that the United States’ first lady in area could be topic to overwhelming media curiosity and cultural strain to be good. Ride flew first and Resnik flew subsequent.

You write: “NASA didn’t discriminate, but individuals did.” Can you elaborate?

That was an remark by Dr. Carolyn Huntoon—a scientist and the highest-ranking lady at Johnson Space Center on the time—who turned a mentor to the younger girls astronauts. Although NASA had made it clear that ladies and minorities had been to be welcomed, some folks had by no means labored with such professionals earlier than they usually had doubts about their talents. Inevitably there have been feedback and reservations about a number of the newcomers. Were they actually certified? Did they’ve the “right stuff”? Huntoon mentioned that altering attitudes was the toughest process at first. But as soon as girls and African Americans demonstrated that they may do the roles in addition to anybody—and demonstrated their potential to slot in—most particular person resistance evaporated inside a 12 months or two.

Would you describe NASA as a meritocracy?

That is a tough query if wanting on the Astronaut Office within the Eighties. Clearly, the astronauts all arrived with stellar training, expertise, expertise and talents, and character. They all had demonstrated benefit. That might have left little margin for superb variations in benefit and a gap for different issues to return into play. It is well-known that the director of flight operations within the Eighties and Nineties, George Abbey, had main affect in astronauts’ work assignments and crew alternatives. He attracted a following of army astronauts, particularly these from the U.S. Navy, who frolicked with him and served as his aides. Some of those acolytes had been tapped for key positions and early flights. The early girls didn’t need to play that sport, however they maintained good relationships with Abbey professionally, and he did be sure that all had been assigned to missions. Some thought he took an nearly paternal curiosity of their success, and nobody reported feeling marginalized when surprises, corresponding to being pregnant, meant changes to their flight standing.

NASA’s preliminary requirement that astronauts be army pilots prevented girls from even being thought-about for spaceflight, till ultimately girls might qualify as non-pilot mission specialists. Eileen Collins, a U.S. Air Force pilot, was the primary feminine area shuttle pilot and mission commander. Was this a watershed second for NASA?

Collins’ choice as the primary lady designated as a pilot astronaut was actually heralded on the time—and each time she flew. All the ladies earlier than her had been mission specialists. Until she got here to NASA in 1990, it was not attainable for a lady to realize ample army aviation and check pilot expertise. She broke the final barrier to being a spacecraft pilot. Four years later, Pamela Melroy and Susan Still (Kilrain) had been additionally chosen as pilot astronauts. Having earned the identical army rank because the male pilots and certified to pilot and command area shuttle missions, these three girls had been a big and revered presence within the astronaut hierarchy.

Anna Fisher rearranged her wedding ceremony to accommodate being interviewed by NASA as a part of the astronaut choice course of. What is it about being an astronaut that leads folks to make so many sacrifices?

Many of the ladies shared a want to fulfill the best problem they may think about and be a part of one thing better than particular person ambition. Spaceflight wasn’t simply an journey; it was a calling to be an explorer, to increase data and advance progress, to take humanity past our limits. It was onerous, harmful, demanding, thrilling, and fulfilling. They loved working with so many good, devoted colleagues. Spaceflight stretched them to exceed their very own limits and contribute to the human legacy of discovery. On a lighter notice, Sally Ride and others have remarked that being an astronaut was probably the most enjoyable they ever had or may have! 

Has NASA ever—formally or informally—acknowledged that it waited longer than it ought to must admit girls as astronauts?

I don’t know. In my analysis, I got here to understand that NASA might have modified its coverage earlier when it recruited scientists and engineers who weren’t pilots in 1964 and 1967. Had NASA included girls in these recruitments and alternatives, we’d have seen girls astronauts a minimum of 10 years sooner. A girl would possibly even have been assigned to a Skylab crew, though a mixed-sex crew in shut quarters was then unthinkable. 

Between 1970 and 1975, NASA gained some expertise with girls in astronaut roles throughout “analog missions” that had been patterned on area missions however carried out on Earth. One was underwater, when 5 marine scientist-aquanauts made up the one all-woman crew within the Tektite II analysis program undertaken by the U.S. Navy, NOAA, NASA, the Smithsonian, and different contributors in 1970 (earlier than Skylab). All crews within the collection of missions had been intently monitored throughout multi-week expeditions in an underwater analysis habitat that was very like an area station. The crew of ladies carried out fairly productively and had no issues with isolation, confinement, perspective, conduct, or motivation—demonstrating to NASA’s human efficiency workforce that they may do the job simply in addition to males. In 1974 (after Skylab), one other all-woman crew of 4 scientists carried out a week-long simulation of a scientific analysis mission in a laboratory designed for spaceflight, once more demonstrating that ladies had no issues finishing up the duties, resolving issues, and getting alongside collectively. NASA had the outcomes of those simulated missions a while earlier than formally deciding to incorporate girls in recruiting astronauts for the area shuttle period. It isn’t clear whether or not these now largely forgotten tasks gave NASA confidence to welcome girls as astronauts.

This article, initially titled “The Definition of an Astronaut,” is from the Fall 2025 problem of Air & Space Quarterly, the National Air and Space Museum’s signature journal that explores subjects in aviation and area, from the earliest moments of flight to at this time. Explore the complete problem.

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