How different, how much further along might the world be, if we had let a woman go into space in the 60s? Cobb published two memoirs, Woman Into Space: The Jerrie Cobb Story with co-author Jane Rieker (1963) and Jerrie Cobb, Solo Pilot (1997). Problems/Questions Profile manager: Susan Bradford [ send private message ] So sad to hear of the passing of . Cobb again met with gender issues in South America, as existing missionary and humanitarian groups would not hire a female pilot, so she started her own unaffiliated foundation and flew solo for more than 50 years. "There were originally 20 characters," she says, "because I wrote it in a university setting and they wanted me to throw in as many as possible! A total of 13 women passed the difficult physical testing and became known as the Mercury 13, a . Ultimately, 13 of these women surpassed every requirement in the first round of testing (some with better scores than the more famous "Mercury Seven"). After all, women are, on average, lighter and smaller than men, and require less oxygen. Distribution and use of this material are governed by In the final round, Jerrie Cobb stepped into a space flight simulator that rotated her 30 times each minute on three axes. Jerrie Cobb, Rhea Hurrle, and Wally Funk went to Oklahoma City for an isolation tank test. ThoughtCo, Apr. America's first female astronaut candidate, pilot Jerrie Cobb, who pushed for equality in space but never reached its heights, has died. Jerrie Cobb is 88 years old. This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA was stilling requiring all astronauts to be jet test pilots and have engineering degrees. Valentina Tereshkova: The First Woman in Space, The Life of Guion "Guy" Bluford: NASA Astronaut, The Life and Times of Dr. Ronald E. McNair, Apollo 14 Mission: Return to the Moon after Apollo 13, History of the Apollo 11 Mission, "One Giant Leap for Mankind", Visiting the Johnson Houston Space Center, original U.S. astronauts, the "Mercury Seven, Bernice "B" Trimble Steadman (now deceased). Daughter of William Harvey Cobb and Helena Butler (Stone) Cobb. And, although she never flew in space, Cobb, along with 24 other women, underwent physical tests similar to those taken by the Mercury astronauts with the belief that she might become an astronaut trainee. ", Based out of LA, Ollstein has been present in San Diego throughout development, and is still rewriting in the room. Weeks after being born Cobb's family moved to Washington, D.C., where her grandfather, Ulysses Stevens Stone, was serving in the United States House of Representatives. The bulk of the series consists of publicity images of Cobb at promotional and award events or receptions surrounding her world record flights. All of them met NASAs basic criteria. The trip lasted a total of 29 days, 11 hours, and 59 minutes. Then, check out these behind-the-scenes photos from the moon landing. This test simulated bringing a spinning spacecraft under control and was one of many that the women of the Mercury 13 went through in order to qualify for space flight. Lovelace and Flickinger wanted to implement a similar testing program in the U.S., but NASA was already committed to using male military test pilots for astronaut testing. NASA didn't fly a woman in space Sally Ride until 1983. Because NASA required astronauts have experience specifically in military jet aircraft, and the US military did not allow female jet pilots, it was de facto impossible for them to become astronauts. In 1962 Cobb, with fellow Mercury 13 astronaut Jane Hart, testified at a Congressional hearing about allowing American women to fly into space, but the American space program's astronaut corps would remain closed to women until 1978. Prior to the lady astronauts, no women had qualified for astronaut training by NASAs standard. There, 13 out of 19 women candidates passed the same astronaut training requirements as the Mercury 7 astronauts, proving that women had the same physical, mental and psychological capabilities as men. By the fall of 1961, a total of 25 women, ranging in age from 23 to 41, went to the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Also included are snapshots from her trips to the Amazon, including with tribal peoples and views from the airplane; other travel to foreign locales; with Jack Ford; as well as a few family photographs, including images of Cobb as a young child. (Image credit: NASA) Jerrie Cobb, the first woman to pass . After plans for additional testing of the women were cancelled abruptly in 1960, Cobb drove the effort to revive the project. https://www.wsj.com/articles/jerrie-cobb-passed-astronaut-tests-but-nasa-kept-her-out-of-space-11557498600. The Subcommittee expressed sympathy but did not rule on the question. Also included in this series are letters from the public, supporters, colleagues, etc. "Were now on our third cast; we know what will help the actors, what will help the story be understood. At the same time, she continued helping Lovelace find additional women pilots to examine, eventually compiling a list of 25 pilots to invite. Check out our exhibitionDestination Moon: The Apollo 11 Missionto see how NASA landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. As time passes, the Mercury 13 trainees are passing on, but their dream lives on in the women who live and work and space for NASA and space agencies in Russia, China, Japan, and Europe. Cobb and the rest of the group found themselves in the limelight again when Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in 1963. When Lovelace and Flickinger told her about the idea of including women in an astronaut testing program, Cobb couldnt say yes fast enough! So exceptional that her stress test scores exceeded those of the astronauts in the Mercury 7 Project. There are also letters from and photographs with Cobb and her fianc Jack Ford from the 1950s. The finalists were dubbed the First Lady Astronaut Trainees, and eventually, the Mercury 13. They can't . National World Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. Ford was a former World War II pilot who worked for Fleetway, Inc., and gave Cobb her first job ferrying aircraft. Its photo gallery FAQ states that all of the images in the photo . Yet NASA had no interest in admitting women to its astronaut program and neither did the male astronauts. In 1978, the first year NASA admitted women into its program, Sally Ride broke that barrier. After public testimony by Cobb, Hart, and Cochran, as well as NASA representatives George Low and astronauts John Glenn and Scott Carpenter, the Subcommittee finished the hearings without taking any action. At the time, Cobb had flown 64 types of propeller aircraft, but had made only one flight, in the back seat, of a jet fighter. We seek, only, a place in our nations space future without discrimination, she told a special House subcommittee on the selection of astronauts. Why did it take us so long? Then, the training moved to psychological exams. "Its not the same way men talk about it. [12], In 1962, Cobb was called to testify before a Congressional hearing, the Special Subcommittee on the Selection of Astronauts, about women astronauts. The tests were exhaustive, even harrowingelectric shocks to test reflexes, ice water shot into the ear canal to induce vertigo, an isolation tank, a four-hour eye exam, daily enemas, a throat tube to test their stomach acid, countless X-rays. At 67, Cobb, and who had passed the same tests as John Glenn, petitioned NASA for the chance to participate in such a space flight, but NASA stated "it had no plans to involve additional senior citizens in upcoming launches". https://id.lib.harvard.edu/ead/sch01647/catalog Accessed May 01, 2023. The Soviet Union ended up putting the first woman into space in 1963: Valentina Tereshkova. Visiting the space center as invited guests of STS-63 pilot Eileen Collins, the first female shuttle pilot and later the first female shuttle commander, are (from left): Gene Nora Jessen, Wally Funk, Jerrie Cobb, Jerri Truhill, Sarah Rutley, Myrtle Cagle and Bernice Steadman. NASA's first female astronaut candidate, pilot Jerrie Cobb, has died. But when pilot Jerrie Cobb petitioned for the space agency to accept female astronaut trainees like her, she was shut down. The Mercury 13 were thirteen American women who took part in a privately funded program run by William Randolph Lovelace II aiming to test and screen women for spaceflight.The participantsFirst Lady Astronaut Trainees (or FLATs) as Jerrie Cobb called themsuccessfully underwent the same physiological screening tests as had the astronauts selected by NASA on April 9, 1959, for Project Mercury. She stored fuel at headwaters and flew hundreds of miles up tributaries to indigenous tribes. (AP/AAP) In 1961, Cobb became the first woman to pass astronaut . Series is arranged alphabetically.Series II, PHOTOGRAPHS, 1931?-2000s (#PD.1-PD.47), includes photographs, slides, and negatives documenting Cobb's astronaut training, her career as a pilot, and her flights ferrying supplies and aid to indigenous peoples in South America. [21] Cobb believed that it was necessary to also send an aged woman on a space flight in order to determine whether the same effects witnessed on men would be witnessed on women. Why yes, her numbers are fantastic36-24-36!", Sardelli and Ollstein both say the collaboration has been fabulous so far. The Crimes Of Eric Rudolph, The Atlanta Bomber Who Attacked The 1996 Summer Olympics. The bulk of the materials consists of television interviews and profiles of Cobb as well as other Mercury 13 pilots when they achieved public attention around the time of John Glenn's return to space on the Shuttle Discovery mission in 1998. Instead of making her an astronaut, NASA tapped her as a consultant to talk up the space program. "I would give my life to fly in space, I really would," Cobb told The Associated Press at age 67 in 1998. (Picture: AP) America's first female . Because of other family and job commitments, not all of the women were asked to take these tests. Died: 18 March 2019 in Florida, United States, aged 88. They attended hearings chaired by Representative Victor Anfuso and testified on behalf of the women. Once the United States became involved in World War II Cobb's family moved once again, this time to Wichita Falls, Texas where Cobb's father joined his active U.S. National Guard unit. Greene, Nick. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Bio Oklahoma native Jerrie Cobb received her pilot's license at age 17, her commercial pilot's license at 18, and flight and ground instructor's rating at 21. Having taken up flying at just age 12, she held numerous world aviation records for speed, distance and altitude, and had logged more than 10,000 hours of flight time. Jerrie Cobb poses next to a Mercury spaceship capsule. Copyright in the papers created by Jerrie Cobb is held by the President and Fellows of Harvard College for the Schlesinger Library. [1], Born on March 5, 1931, in Norman, Oklahoma,[2] Cobb was the daughter of Lt. Col. William H. Cobb and Helena Butler Stone Cobb. She was a bush pilot in missionary endeavors in the Amazon for the next forty years and established the Jerrie Cobb Foundation, Inc. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1981 for her work with the native people of the Amazon and was later the recipient of the Amelia Earhart Award and Medal. Jerrie Cobb's father taught her to fly a biplane at age twelve and by age sixteen she was flying the Piper J-3 Cub, a popular light aircraft. Jerrie Cobb underwent 75 tests in all, and in the end, she scored in the top two percent of trainees outscoring several of the male Mercury astronauts. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Undeterred, Lovelace and Flickinger found an ally in Jerrie Cobb, an accomplished woman aviator who earned her commercial license when she was just 18. "She should have gone to space, but turned her life into one of service with grace," tweeted Ellen Stofan, director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum and a former NASA scientist. [6], Cobb set three aviation records in her 20s: the 1959 world record for nonstop long-distance flight, the 1959 world light-plane speed record, and a 1960 world altitude record for lightweight aircraft of 37,010 feet (11,280m; 11.28km). There were women on the Mayflower and on the first wagon trains west, working alongside the men to forge new trails to new vistas, Cobb testified in turn. On March 19, 1964, Geraldine "Jerrie" Mock and The Spirit of Columbus, her 1953 Cessna 180 single-engine monoplane, took off from Columbus, Ohio. [11] Medical testing [ edit] In the late 1950s, Dr. Randy Lovelace and General Donald Flickinger of the Air Force heard about how the Soviet Union was planning to send women cosmonauts into space. Because women required less oxygen than men and typically had a lower mass, Lovelace pushed for a female astronaut training program. "Its a universal story, for any human being whos just a little bit ahead of their time.". . Jerrie Cobb operating the Multi-Axis Space Test Inertia Facility (MASTIF) at the Lewis Research Center in Ohio. Jerrie Cobb made another push to revive the women's testing. "People said I went a little far with the reporters," she recalls. Senator Philip Hart of Michigan) campaigned in Washington to have the program continue. Jerrie Cobb, who began flying when she was so small she had to sit on pillows to see . [5], She gained her Private Pilot's license at the age of 17 and her Commercial Pilot's license on her 18th birthday. Lovelace and Flickinger wanted to implement a similar testing program in the U.S., but NASA was already committed to using male military test pilots for astronaut testing. Born in 1931 in that same state, Jerrie Cobb learned to fly at age 12, and later took any job that would let her keep flying: dusting crops, patrolling pipelines, and eventually becoming a flight . Much of the clippings, photographs, and correspondence were originally housed in binders. In 1960, Jerrie Cobb was rapidly becoming a celebrity. In 1959, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientist Dr. William Randolph Lovelace selected Cobb, along with 24 other women who were trained pilots, to undergo the same physical and psychological tests that were used to choose the first seven Mercury astronauts.