Women in Space: 23 Stories of First Flights, Scientific Missions, and Gravity-Breaking Adventures
4 INTRODUCTION could be done with a lighter load A woman astronaut would contribute less weight to the capsule and perhaps this was one contest the United States could win When the space program began women in the United States couldn’t get credit cards rent cars or obtain loans to buy houses You didn’t see female police officers or professional athletes When you turned on the television only male news casters delivered the nightly news In the late 1950s a woman often went from her parents home to a home with her husband Some stopped off at college along the way mainly women’s col leges or the few co-ed public colleges that existed Many private colleges didn’t admit women until the 1970s Princeton and Yale went co-ed in 1969 Dartmouth and Duke allowed women in 1972 Harvard waited until 1977 while Columbia held out until 1983 Today more than half of college students accepted in any program of higher education are women A small minority of women supported themselves some by performing traditionally male jobs Pilot Geraldyn Jerrie Cobb was an excellent professional pilot by the mid-1950s But whether she was demonstrating a new airplane or setting a world record she knew she had to look like a lady That meant wearing a dress heels and lipstick when she climbed into the cockpit When women were found who were capable of going into space the US government said no NASA was a men-only club with strong government ties The Soviets however said yes and put the first woman in space in 1963 Fifty years ago Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space Nineteen years later the Soviets would also put the second woman into space When the women’s movement hit the United States along with the Civil Rights Act which prohibited discrimination based on race or gende things started to change American
INTRODUCTION 5 Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center has provided operational support since the early days of American space flight NASA women were accepted even encouraged into the space pro gram Sally Ride became the first American woman astronaut thirty years ago A year later another woman went up then another and another As of 2012 55 women have been in space flying shuttles and commanding space stations Half of NASA’s astronaut class of 2013 were women Many women have been to space multiple times In 2012 the International Space Station had its second female commander These women of courage take on new challenges and adven tures They aren’t women astronauts Like the men who pre ceded them they are astronauts The program that opened up opportunities for astronauts the US space shuttle program ended in 2011 after thirty years
6 INTRODUCTION of missions Astronauts from all nations can still go into space from the Soviet Union and countries such as China have devel oped their own space programs Still people wonder what is next for human space explora tion It is still a rare thing for a person to go to space More people have won lottery jackpots than flown in space 2 Private companies are working on different ideas ranging from space tourism to mining on asteroids People who have made fortunes from technology Microsoft PayPal Amazon and Google are taking the vision that led to their successes and translating it into developing rockets and spaceships The business of creating commercial rockets and ships is comparable to the early day of developing computers and the Internet Space Travelers Where does the word astronaut come from Astronaut is Greek for star voyager or star sailor A Belgian sci ence fiction writer Joseph Henri Honoré Boex first used the term in 1929 but it didn’t become popular until 1961 The Russians prefer to call their space travelers cosmo nauts The first part of that word comes from the Greek word for universe kosmos Yet cosmonaut shares its last syllable with the American term Whether to the stars or the universe these space travelers are sailors
INTRODUCTION 7 NASA Space Shuttle Program 1981 2011 NASA entered a new age of space exploration with the space shuttle Reusable spacecraft named after important ships in history took people into space to explore inves tigate and build The first spaceworthy shuttle Columbia took its first flight on April 12 1981 The final space shuttle mission ended when the Atlantis landed on July 21 2011 The costs of frequent flights into space were judged to be too high to continue with government-sponsored shuttles People lined the streets to see the remaining shuttles go to their final homes The Endeavour the last shuttle built to journey into space journeyed on land to the California Science Center in Los Angeles Enterprise Named after the spaceship in Star Trek used only in testing Columbia Named after one of the first ships to sail around the world Challenger Named after a navy ship that explored the Atlantic and Pacific oceans from 1872 to 1876 Discovery Named after two ships the vessel Henry Hud son used in discovering Hudson Bay and one used by Captain James Cook to explore Hawaii Alaska and Canada Atlantis Named after a boat that sailed more than a half million miles in more than 30 years of ocean research Endeavour Named after the first ship of explorer Captain Cook who sailed through the world in the late 18th cen tury suggested by schoolchildren
