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PAGE 14 • April 8, 2015 • ABQ FREE PRESS
Mercury 13 Women Space Pioneers Trained in ABQ BY RENE THOMPSON
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ew Mexico’s connection to the U.S. space program is well known – from Robert Goddard’s first rocket flight test in Southern New Mexico in 1932 to Dr. Robert Lovelace’s testing of the Mercury 7 astronauts in Albuquerque in 1958. But overlooked by many are 13 pioneering women aviators brought to Albuquerque at the same time to explore the feasibility of sending women into space. Because of gender bias within the highest levels of the U.S. government, none ever made it, but their story reflects the all-out push among both public and private interests to beat the Soviet Union into space at the height of the Cold War.
A directive from President Dwight D. Eisenhower that all astronaut candidates be military test pilots automatically excluded women from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space flight programs The project, unsanctioned by NASA, was organized by Lovelace, the same man who put the Mercury 7 men through extreme physical testing in Albuquerque. Lovelace recruited 13 women and subjected them to the same high G-force testing, sensory deprivation and physical training he thought they’d need to survive the unknowns of space. Each of the 13 women was an accomplished aviator in her own right, having set altitude, speed and endurance records that were as remarkable at the time as the accomplishments of their male counterparts, who were culled exclusively from the ranks of the U.S. military. A directive from President Dwight D. Eisenhower that all astronaut candidates be military test pilots automatically excluded women from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space flight programs. Author Loretta Hall, who wrote “Out of this World: New Mexico’s Contributions to Space Travel,” said the women, who later would be known as the Mercury 13, paved the way for women becoming astronauts decades later. “I think it was fascinating and in some ways ahead of its time,” Hall said of the Mercury 13 testing, “but I think it’s interesting that the women who participated in it were not really trying to advance
Wally Funk with the airplane she flew.
some sort of feminism; they just wanted to be allowed to try and do the job.” “It was very much in the national eye, and people who didn’t live in that era really don’t have a grasp on the level of competition that was going on with the Soviet Union and the United States in the Cold War,” Hall said. “It was very intense and very important to our country to win the battle and race to space, and it was just the fact that going to space was incredibly exciting in and of itself.” Several of the women are still alive. A member of the Mercury 13 and Jerry Cobb (left) and Janey Hart testified before Congress on why women should be sent into space. former president of the Ninety-Nines International Organization of Women Pilots, Gene Nora Jessen, said she never really thought she would get as far as actually going to space but that having the experience changed her life for the better. Jessen was the last woman to enter the program. She had read news articles about the program and wrote Lovelace asking to be included in the testing. “At that time, it was the very beginning of the space program, and the Mercury 7 Taos native Wally Funk scored higher during astronaut testing than some of the men who went into space. All photos, photo credit: Makers.com astronauts had been selected and announced and were on the covers of all the magazines – it was just very exciting – everybody followed every word they had to say and everything they did,” Jessen said. “The whole country was very excited about space and what was going to happen, as we all wanted to know more.” After an initial phase of testing in Albuquerque, Lovelace planned a second phase in Pensacola,
The women who participated in [Mercury 13 testing] were not really trying to advance some sort of feminism; they just wanted to be allowed to try and do the job – author Loretta Hall
Fla., using U.S. Navy testing equipment there. “I had my airline ticket to go down to Pensacola, and apparently the Navy asked NASA for a piece of paper that said if the testing was necessary to use their equipment on these 13 women, and NASA said, ‘What are you talking about?’” Jessen said. NASA canceled the second phase of testing, and the program was dismantled. In researching her book, Hall found that the decision to cancel the Mercury 13 program went all the way to Lyndon Johnson, who got the memo about Lovelace’s program. “For me to have participated in that program, even knowing it didn’t go anywhere, it opened doors for me, so I cont. on page 15
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mercury 13, Page 14 can’t say that it was too much of a loss, but for some of these women, they were dramatically impacted in their disappointment when the testing ended,” she said. “I really was there to just get a finger in the pie, see what was going on and see how far I could go and to be involved with it, and it was all very exciting.”
In the 1960s, women had virtually no career path into space – or into any cockpit, for that matter In the 1960s, women had virtually no career path into space – or into any cockpit, for that matter. There were no women test pilots, no women transport pilots and no women flying for the burgeoning airline industry, Jessen said. “I did get a job with an airliner manufacturer afterward, but there were only three women in the U.S. doing that, but there really was no opportunity to become an actual astronaut, because we never did fit the criteria,” she said. “Basically there was concern from some people that to backtrack and start allowing women to be a part of the testing and program would have required some different equipment in terms of the way the spacesuits were designed, and so forth, and that the decision was also a big part of the social era at that time,” Jessen said. Hall said some the women did get their time in the limelight, albeit through the skewed gender lens of the time. She found an article in TIME magazine about the first woman in the program, Jerry Cobb, dubbed the “Bachelor Girl Cobb.” The article downplayed Cobb’s abilities as a pilot who had set three world records in aviation and instead focused on describing her body measurements, marital status, and her hobbies of swimming and playing tennis. The TIME article also made a point to coin less masculine labels instead of astronaut, to specifically distinguish these women from the men who would actually go to space. They were called “Astronautrix,” “Astro-nette,” “Feminaut” and “Space Girl.”
An unidentified member of the Mercury 13 is tested while riding a stationary bicycle. Like the Mercury 7 astronauts, Jerry Cobb and the Mercury 13 candidates were poked and prodded during testing by Lovelace’s medical teams.
Dr. Robert Lovelace used deprivation tank testing in water to test astronaut candidates’ ability to withstand isolation for long periods of time.
“There certainly was a societal vision of gender roles at the time, and in the TIME article about Jerry Cobb that literally gave her measurements, she was described as a slender five foot, seven-inch, 120-pound blonde,” Hall said.
A TIME magazine article about Jerry Cobb, an accomplished pilot, focused on her body measurements and not the aviation records she had set After the Mercury 13 program was axed, Cobb and another candidate, Janey Hart, testified before a congressional subcommittee to try to get NASA to send women into space. Congress was not swayed, and in fact the deck was stacked against them. Cobb
and Hart “were told they would be able to present their case first, and rebut, but they never had their chance for rebuttal, so they were very upset about the outcome,” Hall said. No American woman would go into space for another 30 years, when Sally Ride in 1983 became the first American woman in space on a mission of the Challenger space shuttle. When the Challenger exploded in 1986, Ride helped uncover the cause of the explosion. She is still the youngest American woman astronaut to travel to space. Hall said many women from around the country tested with the Mercury 13, one of whom was a local female pilot, Wally Funk, who grew up in Taos and was one of the original 13. Funk and two other Mercury 13 women tested higher than some of the men who actually went into space, Hall said. Funk went on to become one of the first female flight instructors, but she dreamed of going to space long after the Mercury program. She was one of the first people to book a flight to space with Virgin Galactic in 2012 at a commercial spaceport in California. Hall said even though the Mercury 13 women were not able to become astronauts, they will never be forgotten by the women pilots and astronauts who came after them. Rene Thompson is an ABQ Free Press journalism intern.
quezada, Page 11 News coverage of the Mercury 13 testing program and its eventual cancellation led to picketers in support of sending women into space.
Gene Nora Jessen never thought she’d make it to space through the Mercury 13 program, but the experience helped her start a career in aviation.
within the state’s educational system. “Look, my four kids are all in Albuquerque Public Schools albeit within their charter school system which I think is the answer for a lot of kids and also for a lot of the problems the school district and the state faces. We already know that, state-wide, we have students who aren’t equipped when they leave school ... and that assumes they don’t give up and drop out before graduating! Creating newer, bigger, more expensive testing methods isn’t the answer, either. Children – all humans – learn differently and shoving kids through a standardized system isn’t the answer. I speak from experience. “In part because of that high school drama teacher, I learned that I’m a project-based learner. Put me in a math class with chalkboard and theory and I don’t get it. Tell me to build a set using wood and
that it needs to measure this many feet long and this many feet wide and needs to have two coats of paint when it’s done and suddenly math and angles and multiplication make sense to me. “I suspect that many kids are like me – I know some of my children are – and I think that by tweaking our educational system a bit more and following the opportunities that charter schools and smaller classroom sizes offer, we can reach a whole section of kids who’ve given up on classes and are floundering within the system. Or, worse, are thinking that they’re stupid and wanting to quit. That Quezada is frustrated with the state’s educational policies is palpable but he’s clear that even though the school district on whose board he sits is the largest in the state, he finds less fault there than he does with the policies coming out of Santa Fe’s
state capital. “Honestly? I’m glad that the bill that would keep kids back a grade if they didn’t test out at a certain percentile failed. Not because I don’t think our kids need to be reading at a higher level or because reading isn’t important, but because keeping them back a grade isn’t going to change that. It would have cost APS $14 million to implement, but it wouldn’t have changed anything for the better. “Socially and emotionally it’s devastating to the child and where we need to see change is in three key areas: smaller class sizes, more tutoring opportunities for children who are running a bit behind and, maybe most importantly, engaging with the family. If a child can get that extra 20 to 30 minutes of tutoring or reading time every day with a parent or an older sibling, they’ll learn through a process cont. on page 32