Women Astronauts Program

NASA's first female astronauts, 1970

The **Women Astronauts Program** was the first NASA program to recruit female astronauts. It started in January 1970 with a group of 20 ASCANs and ended on October 27 of the same year with the public announcement of the first four American women astronauts by NASA Chief astronaut Deke Slayton.

## History

### Background

On September 20, 1969, in their second successfull Moon landing, the Soviet Union landed a female cosmonaut, Anastasia Belikova, on the lunar surface. This caused a worldwide sensation and gained huge press attention, and Belikova instantly became a global icon for woman and girls around the world. After that, President Nixon ordered NASA to match up with the Soviets by also sending a woman to the Moon.

The news was revealed to Deke Slayton, NASA's Chief of the Astronaut Office at that time, and flight director Gene Kranz by administrator Thomas Paine and public affair officer Shorty Powers, who informed them about Nixon's wish for an American woman on the Moon, preferably a blonde, and that this would be a top priority from now on. Kranz reminded them that NASA would not have any female astronauts and Slayton added that they would have to go through the whole ASCAN program of training and tests, but Paine commented that there is no need to go through the whole procedure, a nice enough looking lady in a spacesuit that could walk down a ladder would do it. Gene Slayton made clear, that as long as he would be in charge of the Astronaut Office, nobody would ever get into a spacecraft that he had not personally certified. He also said, that he would need at least 20 candidates to find one that fits the agency's standards.

### Candidate's selection

In a follow-up meeting, Shorty Powers informed them about the Mercury 13, a privately founded program that was run in the early 60s, where 13 woman were taking part and passing the same testing procedures as their male counterparts of the Project MercuryW at NASA. However, the program had ended 7 years ago, and of the 13 pilots, only two were still flying, Patty Doyle, and Molly Cobb. They then went through a list of other female pilots with sufficient flying experience, and at the end of the day, they had a selection of 19 potential candidates. Right when Deke wanted to close the meeting, Shorty stumbled into the room again, informing them that after the White House press secretary Ron ZieglerW showed the president an article titled "Love In The Air - The flying Stevenses" about astronaut Gordo Stevens and his wife Tracy, Nixon thought that was a great idea. Deke and Gene protested, but Paine ended the discussion by saying "If the president want's Tracy Stevens, then Tracy Stevens he will have", with Shorty adding "America's space couple" while putting her on the board.

### The program

The program started on January 6, 1970. 20 candidates were welcomed to NASA by Deke Slayton, and he informed them about the procedures of being astronaut candidates, which would be a 24-hours-a-day seven-days-a-week training program preparing them for space travel. From this day on, everthing they do would be graded, including academics, character, motivation, and pilot performance. There would be a list hanging out periodically and if their name isn't on it anymore, they would be out. The program would include basic science programs, jet qualification, celestial navigation, simulator training, guidance, navigation and control training, and more.

After 55 days, 5 candidates had already been dropped out. On day 74 of the program, 12 ASCANs were left, and on day 101, half of the initial group had been cut. Around mid October, on day 200, the only 5 remaining candidates were Patty Doyle, Molly Cobb, Ellen Waverly, Danielle Poole, and Tracy Stevens. On that day, the candidates had to fly the so called "flying bedstead", a lunar landing training vehicle (LLTV) used to simulate flying the lunar landing module on the Moon, at Ellington Air Force Base. During her training flight, Patty Doyle crashed with her vehicle and died in the process.

### Death of Patty Doyle

*See also: Patty Doyle*
Patty's death was raising considerable doubts about the program and the idea of woman in space in general. The press' euphoric reporting stopped and public opinion started to shift. Retired astronaut John Glenn visited Deke Slayton in his office at JSC and expressed his concerns about the program. He thought that woman do not belong to space and argued that *"men go off and fight the wars and fly the planes"* and that *"woman can't do what we do"*, that would be *"just a fact of social order"*. He told Deke that he is worried about the agency's credibility and urged him to pull the plug.

A couple of days later, Thomas Paine informed Deke that Nixon was stepping down from his support of the program and wanted it to end, after his polls went down due to bad press after the Doyle incident. Soon after, on October 27, Deke called a press conference at JSC without informing Paine or Shorty Powers beforehand, and publicly announced America's next Apollo astronauts: Tracy Stevens, Molly Cobb, Ellen Waverly, and Danielle Poole. Paine told him that he just made "Nixon's shitlist".

### Apollo 15

*Main article: Apollo 15*
Some time after his press conference, Deke Slayton assigned Molly Cobb for Apollo 15. She was replacing Gordo Stevens, who had previously been given the spot so he would agree to his wife's participation in the program.

On October 18, 1971, Molly Cobb became the first American woman in space, and 3 days later the first American woman on the Moon. Female NASA employees formed a guard of honor when she left the building towards the Apollo spacecraft, and spectators were wearing t-shirts with her face printed on it and slogans like "a woman's place is in space". Molly sucessfully found ice inside the Shackleton crater on the Moon, setting an important milestone for the upcoming NASA base, Jamestown.

## Known candidates

* Sara Anderson
* Amy Beville
* Molly Cobb
* Patty Doyle
* Cathleen Fitzgerald
* Mindy Frank
* Janice
* Hanna Peterson
* Danielle Poole
* Megan Shearin
* Tracy Stevens
* Barbara Taylor
* Ellen Waverly

## Galleries

### Images

Shorty Powers presenting Mercury 13The former Mercury 13Female ASCAN boardDay 1 - ASCAN classASCAN training programDay 18 - flight testFlight test Tracy StevensDay 55Performance RankingCandidates at OutpostDay 74 - simulator testDay 101 - field testCandidates reading fan mailDay 200 - 5 candidates leftThe burning lunar landing training vehiclePatty Doyles death on TVDeke Slayton announcing first female astronautsDeke's press releasePress photoPhoto shooting Apollo 15 crewNASA's women cheering for MollyNASA's women cheering for MollyMolly on her way to the rocketEllen, Danielle, & Tracy cheering
### Video

For All Mankind - NASA Recruiting Female AstronautsThe recruiting of the first female astronauts
## Behind the scenes

In the real world, the first American woman to fly in space was Sally RideW and happened in June 1983 only. She was the third woman in space, after the Soviet cosmonauts Valentina TereshkovaW in 1963 and Svetlana SavitskayaW in 1982. No woman was ever on the Moon as of today, but there are plans to change this with the upcoming Artemis programW. 9 of the 18 Artemis astronaut candidates are woman, but no one has been assigned to any mission yet.

In 1978, NASA announced the selection of its eighth group of astronaut candidates, which also included the first women, six mission specialists. NASA's first female pilot was Eileen CollinsW, who first flew in February 1995 on Space Shuttle *Discovery* and became the first female US mission commander in July 1999. By June 2020, only 12% of all astronauts who have been to space were woman. However, the proportion of women among space travelers is increasing substantially over time.

## Trivia

At least some of the astronaut candidates appear to be named after production crew members of the show. Sara Anderson (IMDb ) was the principel set costumer in the first 2 seasons. Megan Shearin (IMDb ) was an assistant production coordinator in season 1.

## See also

* Mercury 13
* Equal Rights Amendment
* Space Race

## External links

* Woman in space on Wikipedia
* List of female astronauts on Wikipedia
* Mercury 13 on Wikipedia

## References

1. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 1, Episode 2: "He Built the Saturn V"
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 1, Episode 3: "Nixon's Women"
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 1, Episode 4: "Prime Crew"
4. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 1, Episode 5: "Into the Abyss"