AH Challenge: Women in the Early American Space Program?

[e of pi]

I was reading yesterday about the Mercury 13, a privately run and funded program run around 1960 to see whether women were physicaly capable of passing the same tests as the Mercury astronauts. A number of female pilots recruited fo the program suceeded in passing most stages of it (there were issues securing the facilities for the final stage, as the Navy would not allow their use after they discovered that the program was not NASA-approved), and one Jerrie Cobb passed all three before the Navy clamped down.

Being an alt-history nut and a space buff, I was intrigued by this footnote in history. Can anyone help me think of whether there's a plausible POD to put a woman into the American space program very early on, either in the Mercury program or Gemini?

The major barriers that I see are the requirement for military test pilot experience (NASA refused to grant equivalency for the women's extensive civilian flight experience, some even as civilian test pilots) and NASA's understandable resistance to political meddling in their training program.

Is it possible, maybe, to get more media attention on the committee's hearings, resulting in a backroom deal that one of the candidates will fly on Gemini in exchange for not continuing something that could result in bad publicity for NASA? What could this butterfly outside of the history of the space program?

 

[Keenir]

I was reading yesterday about the Mercury 13, a privately run and funded program run around 1960

if its the book of that same name, its a good one.

to see whether women were physicaly capable of passing the same tests as the Mercury astronauts. A number of female pilots recruited fo the program suceeded in passing most stages of it (there were issues securing the facilities for the final stage, as the Navy would not allow their use after they discovered that the program was not NASA-approved), and one Jerrie Cobb passed all three before the Navy clamped down.

*nods*

though its a shame the South Korean woman didn't get far in the trials...that would likely play well in the press if she'd done better.

Being an alt-history nut and a space buff, I was intrigued by this footnote in history. Can anyone help me think of whether there's a plausible POD to put a woman into the American space program very early on, either in the Mercury program or Gemini?

it would help if Glenn and the others are kept away from the witness stand - they weren't exactly a big help. and neither was that woman who was initially supportive of the 13. (the former WASP who was disqualified from the 13 by dint of being too old)

Is it possible, maybe, to get more media attention on the committee's hearings, resulting in a backroom deal that one of the candidates will fly on Gemini in exchange for not continuing something that could result in bad publicity for NASA? What could this butterfly outside of the history of the space program?

probably very little in the way of butterflies - most people in the US will dismiss it as propaganda and-or pre-empting the Soviets from being the first to do it.

though if the eventual backroom deal involves the Navy being the support for the womens' space program (as opposed to the Air Force being the nucleus and founder of the mens' program), and Cobb does well - the Navy gets bragging points in any Air Force-Navy competition.

...if something happens to Cobb in orbit or afterwards, the Navy gets egg on their face.

 

[carlton_bach]

I think the big problem is the military dominance in all early space flight programmes. As things stand, I think the only way to get a woman into the US space programme is to make itz politically desireable (that was why the Soviets had a female cosmonaut, after all, and some bright spark in Washington may decide that America should claim that first). Otherwise, how had will the Navy fight for 'its' femal astronauts? Probably not very.

If the space programme had more of a scienc-y bend and less of a penis measuring contest atmosphere, with physicists, astronomers, geographers and physicians rather than engineers and soldiers in charge, you could see women astronauts earlier because

- the requirements would be modified to extend to scientific usefulness (ability to operate instruments and interpret data, redesign experimental setups on the fly etc.). That would make capable female candidates whose strength lay in that area seem more desireable (a big problem was that women test pilots were not perceived to offer any 'extra' benefit over Aif Force men).

- the decisionmakers are more likely to not be reflexively hostile to the idea - many professors in the 50s and 60s had met bright female hard science graduate students, but no general in that era ever had had female fighter aces or test pilots under his command)

- left-wing politics that could motivate training a woman astronaut for the sake of having one are much more widespread in academia. So is a good understanding of the propaganda value that will have for the Soviets.