Women in Space: 23 Stories of First Flights, Scientific Missions, and Gravity-Breaking Adventures
To Justus whose curiosity about space and life knows no boundaries
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 PART I THE MERCURY 13 9 The Astronauts Who Never Were 13 PART II COSMONAUTS 41 Valentina Tereshkova First in Space 49 Svetlana Savitskaya No Apron for Her 57 Elena Kondakova Long Duration in Space 62 Yelena Serova Ready and Waiting 66 PART III AMERICAN WOMEN JOIN THE SPACE RACE 73 Sally Ride First American Woman in Space 81 Judith Resnik All She Ever Wanted to Do 91 Kathryn Sullivan A Walk into History 99 Shannon Lucid A Russian Favorite 105 Mae Jemison Doctor Astronaut 112 Ellen Ochoa Career Astronaut 119 Eileen Collins Space Shuttle Commander 125 Catherine Cady Coleman Musical Astronaut 134 Pamela Melroy Piloting in Space 139 Peggy Whitson Space Station Commander 145 Sunita Williams Breaking Records 151 Barbara Morgan Teachers in Space 158
PART IV WORLD ASTRONAUTS 165 Roberta Bondar Living a Childhood Dream 171 Chiaki Mukai Opening Doors 176 Claudie André-Deshays Haigneré French Astronaut and Soyuz Commander 181 Yi Soyeon First from Korea 187 Kalpana Chawla A Tragic End 191 Liu Yang Flying Knight in Space 197 Samantha Cristoforetti Military Pilot Astronaut 201 THE FUTURE OF SPACEFLIGHT 205 Acknowledgments 207 Notes 209 Glossary 217 Online Resources for Further Reading 219 Bibliography 221 Index 229
INTRODUCTION World War II was largely fought and won in the skies with airplanes that flew faster and did more things than ever before Coming forward as winners from World War II a mod ern America began to emerge A new kind of hero emerged as well a hero willing to sacrifice self to explore new frontiers Like the cowboys and pioneers before them these new heroes had a certain swagger that came from being larger than life But instead of a ten-gallon hat the hero wore a space helmet And like the heroes portrayed in the history books these new heroes were men Astronauts The first astronauts those chosen few experi enced what once was only found in science fiction books Being shot into outer space Flying in space ships Going to the moon Men made those first journeys Not that there weren’t capa ble women there were American society just wasn’t ready or at least those who made the decisions weren’t ready The attitude was that women were to be protected and taken care of concepts that contradicted becoming astronauts 1
