The University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh awarded honorary doctorates to eight of the remaining Mercury 13 – thirteen of America's finest female pilots who trained secretly to become astronauts at the dawn of the space race.
"We were ready to lay our lives on the line to be an astronaut," 75-year-old Jerrie Cobb said.
But when NASA said "manned space flight," it meant just that. Sexism and prejudice scrubbed their mission and their dreams.
"I finally got to talk with Vice President Johnson and he said, 'Jerrie if we let you or other women into the space program, we have to let blacks in, we'd have to let Mexican-Americans in, we have to let every minority in and we just can't do it'."
Jerrie Cobb was the first of what NASA called the "First Lady Astronaut Trainees." She had set records as a pilot and logged twice as many flight hours as John Glenn.
All of the Mercury 13 were accomplished. All aced the same rigorous training as the Mercury 7 men, and sometimes outperformed them.
"The women took part in much more strenuous tests," said Martha Ackmann, who wrote the book that introduced these trailblazers to the world. She also gave Saturday's key note address.
While the Mercury 13 women were grounded, the Russians launched the first woman into space in 1963.
It would take the U.S. two more decades to send up astronaut Sally Ride, and another 12 years before Eileen Collins would pilot a space mission.
"I'm just sorry that it took our government so long," Cobb said. "We wanted to go. We were qualified and we were ready."
The glass ceiling remains in aviation. Only a quarter of the nation's 154 astronauts are women. The numbers are even smaller for female pilots. They account for just 2.5 percent of pilots flying military jets and 3.5 percent of pilots of commercial aircraft.
The men who made up the Mercury 7 got fame and glory, and many believe it's time the Mercury 13 got their due.
"I think something like a congressional gold medal would be an honor," Ackmann said. "I think their names should be in the Smithsonian."
It's a great story. Unfortunately, it isn't quite true. The Mercury 13: setting the story straight
The university’s “Mercury 13” program page was clearly the source of the news media accounts. “In the early days of the Space Race, 25 women were asked to train in secret as astronauts,” the page stated. “In summer of 1961, just before leaving for the next phase of training at the Naval Aviation Center in Pensacola, Fla., the women received telegrams telling them not to come. Due to the prejudices of the times, the project was cancelled.”The story was too good to check. It fit the narrative.
A reality check is needed here, because none was provided in any of the press coverage or at the university’s website. The subject is actually rather well documented, as a diligent Internet search quickly reveals.
Truth #1: However impressive may have been the flight experience of the women undergoing the medical testing in 1960–1961, no white male with similar qualifications would ever have gotten a second glance by the NASA astronaut screening process. UW-Oshkosh and the press reports conceal this by equating all “flight experience” as of equivalent value for future astronaut candidates—small aircraft, commercial transport, jet transport, and even supersonic single-seat jet fighter—all are counted as of equal value.
Truth #2: There was no NASA program to even investigate whether women could pass the preliminary screening processes for astronaut selection. The activity was a private one sponsored by a doctor who was an independent consultant to NASA on astronaut selection.
Truth #3: There never was any training: all the activities involved medical screening.
Truth #4: The project ended after the investigator, Dr. Lovelace, had scheduled some screening time at the US Navy’s Pensacola flight training center and the Navy asked him for a charge number from the government sponsor of the project. He stalled all he could—there was no such sponsor—and the frustrated but still willing naval doctors finally called NASA to find out what was going on. When they found out that neither NASA nor any other government customer was sponsoring the tests, they told Lovelace that he had to pay or cancel. He cancelled his reservation. But there was no “program” that got “cancelled”, because there never had been any program to begin with.
Truth #5: There was no significant secrecy attached to any of activities, and no secrecy at all within a few months. The women’s activities were described in depth in contemporary press accounts and then in Congressional testimony.
All of these historical facts are easy to document and verify, but not a single journalist or academic shows any signs of ever doing so. Instead, they just accepted all of the assertions and cultural and social accusations of the university’s website and one particular book.
We have women astronauts now, but not as many as we should. I'm not sure what should be done about it, but twisting the facts to get the story you want isn't the solution.
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