Women in Space: 23 Stories of First Flights, Scientific Missions, and Gravity-Breaking Adventures
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
2 INTRODUCTION The Space Race began soon after the Allies won World War II America and the former Soviet Union inherited and made use of German technology specifically rocket technology Although the two countries had fought on the same side during World War II their relationship deteriorated in the years after ward The United States embraced democracy while the Soviet Union was ruled by communism Each side possessed nuclear weapons Though no open battles took place the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a cold war Both sides were convinced that their form of government was best A competition of sorts developed and the biggest contest was the Space Race The Soviet Union won the race to be first in space on October 4 1957 when Sputnik I was launched Weigh ing in at 184 pounds Sputnik I looked like a metal beach ball with four legs It orbited the Earth for 98 minutes Almost a month later Sputnik II went into space carrying a passenger a dog Launching a satellite was something the United States had been working on without much success One effort exploded on the launch pad The Soviets success spurred the United States on and America had its first success on January 31 1958 Explorer I was launched with a scientific unit that discovered the magnetic radiation belts around the Earth later known as the Van Allen belts The Explorer and Sputnik programs continued with scien tific exploration although both the United States and the Soviet Union still had the occasional failure Six months after the first Explorer satellite the US Congress passed the National Aero nautics and Space Act to provide for research into problems of flight within and outside the earth’s atmosphere and for other purposes 1 Initially the US Department of Defense oversaw space mat ters but President Eisenhower saw the need for a civilian space
INTRODUCTION 3 agency Many people voiced the opinion that space exploration wasn’t a military matter but a scientific one The National Aero nautics and Space Administration NASA was born Everyone knew that the next step was putting a person into space NASA established the Mercury project to reach that goal President Eisenhower a five-star army general decided that astronaut candidates should be selected from a pool of military test pilots NASA began looking for experienced test pilots with approximately 1,500 hours of flight experience Hundreds were screened Groups underwent some of the testing at the Lovelace Medical Clinic and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base NASA considered a pilot’s strong record of flight experience to be very important Unlike early Soviet space capsules which were automated American spacecraft required experienced pilots at the controls in case of malfunctions Not having an experienced pilot would have meant death in more than one occasion on the Mercury Gemini and Apollo missions At a press conference on April 9 1959 NASA introduced the seven American men who were ready to go into space Scott Carpenter Gordon Cooper John Glenn Gus Grissom Walter Schirra Alan Shepard Jr and Deke Slayton With luck one of them would be the first man in space But before that could happen the Soviets launched Vostok 1 on April 12 1961 and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space Alan Shepard Jr followed less than a month later in Freedom 7 In the Space Race the Soviets were still winning In the early days of space travel one consideration in choos ing astronauts was weight Capsule weight astronaut weight payload weight each pound required more fuel and the fuel added weight as well Each pound to be launched required three pounds of propellant Some scientists speculated that more
