Jerrie Cobb was NASA's first female astronaut candidate, passing astronaut testing in 1961. Geraldyn "Jerrie" Cobb,Waco,TX - Genealogy.com During her historic flight, she traveled 23,103 miles in just under 30 days. The question of whether women could endure the physical rigors of spaceflight had been debated in popular culture for years, but Cobbs persistent lobbying inspired the House subcommittee hearings that investigated whether NASA was discriminating on the basis of sex. In 1978, six women were chosen as astronaut candidates by NASA: Rhea Seddon, Kathryn Sullivan, Judith Resnik, Sally Ride, Anna Fisher, and Shannon Lucid. Kat. 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. Unfortunately, Jackie Cochran, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, and George Low all testified that including women in the Mercury Project or creating a special program for them would be a detriment to the space program. Contenta, Senor, contenta. Geraldyn "Jerrie" Cobb, the first woman to pass NASA's astronaut training, has died. Jerrie Cobb, a member of the Mercury 13, is seen testing in 1960 in NASA's Multiple Axis Space Test Inertia Facility. While some had learned of the examinations by word of mouth, many were recruited through the Ninety-Nines, a women pilot's organization. But NASA already had its Mercury 7 astronauts, all jet test pilots and all military men. 2022 The Museum of Flight - All Rights Reserved. Jerrie Cobb, Record-Breaking Pilot and Advocate for Female Spaceflight Jerrie Cobb prepares to operate the Multi-Axis Space Test Inertia Facility (MASTIF) at the Lewis Research Centre in Ohio in 1960. Distribution and use of this material are governed by Altogether, 13 women passed the arduous physical testing and became known as the Mercury 13. "If its a new play, people want it to be the best it can be. 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. "[15], Cobb lobbied, along with other Mercury 13 participants, including Jane Briggs Hart, to be allowed to train alongside the men. Wally Funk, one of the trainees, spent over 10 hours in an isolation tank. According to Ruth Lummis of the Jerrie Cobb Foundation who helped coordinate the donation of Cobb's papers to the Schlesinger Library, the binders were compiled by friends and volunteers over the years and their dates and contents overlap. Remembering Geraldyn "Jerrie" Cobb, Pioneering Woman Aviator. NASA never flew another elderly person in space, male or female. https://www.wsj.com/articles/jerrie-cobb-passed-astronaut-tests-but-nasa-kept-her-out-of-space-11557498600. or into the pressure suit at the last minute that you could not adequately test." [2] John Glenn's main purpose on his space flight was to observe the effects of a micro-gravity environment on the body of an aged individual. In the final round, Jerrie Cobb stepped into a space flight simulator that rotated her 30 times each minute on three axes. Cobb died in Florida at age 88 on March 18 following a brief illness. She stored fuel at headwaters and flew hundreds of miles up tributaries to indigenous tribes. The Mercury 13s story was told in a recent Netflix documentary and a play based on Cobbs life, They Promised Her the Moon, is currently running in San Diego. ", Some early feedback from the readings was skeptical. In her autobiography, Cobb described how she danced on the wings of her plane in the Amazon moonlight, when learning via radio on 20 July, 1969, that Apollo 11s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had landed on the moon. Altogether, 13 women passed the arduous physical testing and became known as the Mercury 13. Following her deep disappointment that there would be no further testing or entry into the U.S. space program for her, Cobb became a missionary pilot, merging her love of flight with her desire to serve others. Recapping The Right Stuff: Season 1 wrap-up | Astronomy.com WASP, Cobb and Lovelace were assisted in their efforts by Jacqueline Cochran, who was a famous American aviatrix and an old friend of Lovelace's. Bettmann/Getty ImagesAn August 1960 photo of Jerrie Cobb identifies the lady space cadet by height, weight, and measurements. Cobb was dismissed one week after commenting: Im the most unconsulted consultant in any government agency., She wrote in her 1997 autobiography Jerrie Cobb, Solo Pilot, My country, my culture, was not ready to allow a woman to fly in space.. The trip lasted a total of 29 days, 11 hours, and 59 minutes. She should have gone to space, but turned her life into one of service with grace, tweeted Ellen Stofan, director of the Smithsonian Institutions National Air and Space Museum and a former NASA scientist. [6][8], To save the money to buy a surplus World War II Fairchild PT-23 to allow her to be self-employed, Cobb played women's softball on a semiprofessional team, the Oklahoma City Queens. The papers of Jerrie Cobb document Cobb's professional life, highlighting her career as a pilot and her participation in Mercury 13, including her attempts to be the first woman in space, the public impact of her career, and her humanitarian work flying medicine and food to remote parts of the Amazon. 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. Jerrie Cobb was the first female to volunteer for the program. From her first airplane ride in an open-cockpit Waco at age 12, Cobb dreamt of and subsequently built a career in aviation, no easy task for a woman of the 1950s. America's first female astronaut candidate, pilot Jerrie Cobb, who pushed for equality in space but never reached its heights, has died. WWII, Some clippings also reference the presence of the space race, with both Soviet and American newspaper articles profiling Valentina Tereshkova, the Soviet cosmonaut who would beat Cobb to be the first woman in space (1963). The Bizzarre And Terribly Executed Kidnapping Of Frank Sinatra Jr. What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. These televised segments were compiled by the Jerrie Cobb Foundation as part of the publicity campaign to promote Cobb's second attempt for space flight. Randy Lovelace, who had designed the physical tests for the Project Mercury astronauts NASAs original seven astronauts wanted to test womens stamina in space, too. 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. Learn more about the first animals in space. - Informationen zum Thema Jerrie Cobb NASA space pilot woman pilot female pilot Mercury 13 Amazon", National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Cobb, Geraldyn M. "Jerrie", https://www.thoughtco.com/errie-cobb-3072207, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jerrie_Cobb&oldid=1143859765, University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma alumni, Classen School of Advanced Studies alumni, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Articles having same image on Wikidata and Wikipedia, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from NASA, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Named Pilot of the Year by the National Pilots Association, Fourth American to be awarded Gold Wings of the, Honored by the government of Ecuador for pioneering new air routes over the Andes Mountains and Andes jungle, 1962 Received the Golden Plate Award of the, Received Pioneer Woman Award for her "courageous frontier spirit" flying all over the. Cobb is portrayed by Mamie Gummer in the 2020 Disney+ TV series The Right Stuff. Cobb flew missionary and humanitarian missions, including delivering food, medicine, and other aid. Jerrie Cobb undergoing physiological testing (NASA). Cobb had one older sister, Carolyn. [4] At 16, she was barnstorming around the Great Plains in a Piper J-3 Cub, dropping leaflets over little towns announcing the arrival of circuses. "Were now on our third cast; we know what will help the actors, what will help the story be understood. 20 years before America's 1st woman astronaut, 13 women trained to go to space. "[17][7][18], Cobb then began over 30 years of missionary work in South America, performing humanitarian flying (e.g., transporting supplies to indigenous tribes), as well as surveying new air routes to remote areas. Their reasons were practical rather than political: women tended to handle stress better, weigh less, consume less oxygen and use less energy than men, making them great test subjects for spaceflight. Play Explores Ups, Downs and 'Remarkable' Life of 1st Female Astronaut Jerrie Cobb Passed Astronaut Tests but NASA Kept Her Out of Space Although the group has been called the Mercury 13, a misleading and ahistorical moniker, Cobb called them her Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees.. Greene, Nick. Geraldyn Cobb was born on 5 March 1931 in Norman, Oklahoma, the second daughter of a military pilot and his wife. After plans for additional testing of the women were cancelled abruptly in 1960, Cobb drove the effort to revive the project. Because of other family and job commitments, not all of the women were asked to take these tests. . [9][10], In May 1961 NASA Administrator James Webb appointed Cobb as a consultant to the NASA space program.[6]. Meet the Rogue Women Astronauts of the 1960s Who Never Flew How the Mercury 13 Fought to Get Women in Space - JSTOR Daily Former Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova and U.S. astronaut Cady Coleman (right), together before Coleman's 2010 launch to space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazahkstan. The first satellite, the first astronaut, the first spacewalkand the first woman in space, in 1963. Then, the training moved to psychological exams. Finding aids may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description. Cobb received many awards including the 1972 Harmon International Trophy as the woman pilot of the year and the Amelia Earhart Gold Medal of Achievement. We ask that opportunity in the pioneering of space.. Born 5 Mar 1931 in Norman, Cleveland, Oklahoma, United States. A 1971 NASA report declared, The question of direct sexual release on a long-duration space mission must be considered It is possible that a woman, qualified from a scientific viewpoint, might be persuaded to donate her time and energies for the sake of improving crew morale..
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