<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Here are five names that are included in the above title:\u00a0 Rhea Seddon, Shannon Lucid, Kathy Sullivan, Anna Fisher, and Judy Resnik.\u00a0 If you have an idea who these women are, then you are probably a space junky like me.\u00a0 If none of these names rings a bell, then the sixth name will probably give you a big clue as to where we are headed:\u00a0 Sally Ride.\u00a0 <\/span>The Six<\/span><\/i> is the title of an excellent 2023 book by <\/span>Bloomberg News <\/span><\/i>reporter Loren Grush.\u00a0 Published by Scribner under license from Simon and Schuster, the expanded title will take the mystery out of the abbreviated title:\u00a0 <\/span>The Six – The Untold Story of America\u2019s First Women Astronauts.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For the record, the first woman in space was a Russian industrial worker by the name of Valentina Tereshkova.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>A former textile factory worker and amateur skydiver, Tereshkova was commissioned as an officer when she joined the Air Force and became part of the Cosmonaut Corps..\u00a0 Her father, Vladimir died in the Finnish Winter War when she was just two years old.<\/span><\/p>\n Her mother and her three children relocated for better employment opportunities.\u00a0 She ended up working at a cotton mill and when Valentina graduated from school at 16, she began working at a tire factory and later at a textile mill.\u00a0 She graduated from the Light Industry Technical School in 1960 having continued her education by taking correspondence courses.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Tereshkova\u2019s path to space began when the director of cosmonaut training, Nicholai Kamanin, read American media reports that the United States was training woman pilots to become astronauts.\u00a0 Kamanin said, \u201cWe can not allow that the first woman in space will be American.\u00a0 This would be an insult to the patriotic feelings of Soviet women.\u201d\u00a0 Kamanin was granted permission to train five females in the next cosmonaut group, scheduled to begin in 1963.\u00a0 In the initial pool of 400 candidates, screeners found 58 who met the requirements and Kamanin then reduced that number to 23.\u00a0 In February of 1962, Tereshkova and four other candidates began training – to ensure the first woman in space was Russian, the five women selected actually started their training before the Russian men selected for that cosmonaut group.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Tereshkova\u2019s flight on Vostok 6 began two days after another cosmonaut was launched aboard Vostok 5.\u00a0 They spent three days communicating by radio while in orbit but never did see each other\u2019s capsule in space.\u00a0 With the call sign \u2018Seagull\u2019, Valentina became the youngest woman to fly in space (she was 26) and the only woman to fly a solo space mission.\u00a0 Though she felt ill for most of her flight, she still managed more time in space than all of the American astronauts who had flown in space up to that time (48 orbits over 2 days, 22 hours and 50 minutes in space).\u00a0 As with all Vostok flights, she was ejected from the capsule at about four miles above the Earth and parachuted to a safe landing in spite of violent gusts of wind that tore at her parachute.\u00a0 The Russians kept their \u2018cosmonauts and capsules landing separately\u2019 secret for quite a long time so they could retain the illusion that they had completed the whole flight aboard their spacecraft. .<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Tereshkova\u2019s achievement was celebrated and she spent many months traveling abroad as part of a Russian \u2018Communism is better than Capitalism\u2019 public relations blitz.\u00a0 She was active in party politics even after the fall of the USSR.\u00a0 She never flew in space again because the Soviet government did not want to lose another space hero after the untimely death of the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin.\u00a0 She did, however, remain an instructor at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.\u00a0 Though long retired from the space program, Tereshkova is still alive and the 87 year old is known for several quotes about her time in space.\u00a0 Among them, \u201cIf women can be railroad workers in Russia, why can\u2019t they fly in space?\u201d, \u201cOnce you\u2019ve been in space, you appreciate how small and fragile the Earth is.\u201d and \u201cAnyone who has spent any time in space will love it for the rest of their lives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As far as American women training for space flight, there were 13 females who were run through the same rigorous screening process as their male counterparts at the Lovelace Clinic in Colorado in 1959-60.\u00a0 Jerrie Cobb was the only woman to successfully pass all three phases of the testing and scored in the top 2 percent of all candidates who were screened.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the testing program for women ended and none were offered a chance to train for the astronaut corp.\u00a0 One of the 13 did eventually fly in space.\u00a0 Her name is Wally Funk and noted space geek Jeff Bezos offered her a seat on the same Blue Origin flight he flew aboard.\u00a0 The 82 year old Funk joined Bezos, his brother Mark and an 18-year-old student on July 20, 2021.\u00a0 Indeed, other women would not even be asked to apply for NASA\u2019s program until many years after the original 13 women were screened.\u00a0 When the newest group of astronauts was announced in January of 1978, six of the thirty five new NASA hires were <\/span>The Six <\/span><\/i>alluded to in the above title.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Each of the original six woman astronauts came to the space program for their own reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n Shanon Lucid (nee: Wells) grew up in Oklahoma after her missionary parents ended their globe-trotting ways.\u00a0 As a twelve year old, she was consuming science fiction and building models of rockets.\u00a0 Having learned about the budding manned space program in Russia, she proclaimed she would need to become a communist and move there so she could fly in space.\u00a0 She drove her family nuts talking endlessly about space and was thrilled when the first U.S. astronauts were announced in 1963, but she could not happen to notice that they were all men.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When the Mercury 7 astronauts were introduced, she had written to editors of Science magazines inquiring if the astronaut corp was open \u2018for all Americans\u2019.\u00a0 One wrote back and broke the \u2018news\u2019: \u201cOne day women will fly in space.\u201d\u00a0 A few months later, Shanon was about to graduate from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in chemistry.\u00a0 Prior to getting her diploma, she asked her inorganic chemistry professor how she should go about getting a job in chemistry only to be told, \u201cThere\u2019s absolutely no one who will hire you.\u201d\u00a0 The prof didn\u2019t say it, but the implication was clear – no one would hire a woman chemist.\u00a0 More disappointment would follow when she finally did wrangle a temporary job in that field only to find out she would not be paid the same rate as the man she was replacing because (pause for effect), she was a woman.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While working at the Kerr-McGee Oil Company, she met her husband who also worked there.\u00a0 When her bosses found out she was pregnant, they fired her.\u00a0 Shanon\u2019s husband suggested full time employment would be easier for her to find if she got a PhD.\u00a0 The four year program would eventually land her at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.\u00a0 In July of 1976, she spied an article in the foundation\u2019s news magazine that said NASA was\u00a0 recruiting astronauts for the Space Shuttle program\u2026and this time the agency wanted women to apply.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Anna Fisher (nee: Lee) told her friend and fellow candy striper at LA\u2019s Harbor General Hospital something she never told anyone else:\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019d really like to be an astronaut.\u201d\u00a0 They were talking about what their post-high school plans might be.\u00a0 She confessed she had been thinking about it alot since May 5, 1961 when Mercury 7 astronaut Alan Shepard had donned his space suit and made the first sub-orbital flight in the United States manned space program.\u00a0 An Army brat, she, too, had noticed that only male astronauts who previously piloted jets were flying in space.\u00a0 Women were not allowed to fly jets in the military when she first thought about being an astronaut.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Anna was working twelve hour shifts as a surgical intern at the same Harbor General Hospital when her doctor husband (future husband) called and left a message for her to call him.\u00a0 She was exhausted but finally managed to get him on the phone.\u00a0 He told her he had lunch with a fellow doctor who was a big space fan.\u00a0 The doctor told Bill Fisher about NASA\u2019s new recruitment class and Bill knew about her lifelong dream to be an astronaut.\u00a0 There was only one problem, he explained, \u201cThe deadline for applications is in three weeks.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The other four candidates shared similar stories about their paths to become astronauts even though their backgrounds were not cookie cutter tales.\u00a0 Margaret \u2018Rhea\u2019 Seddon was also a surgical resident but in Nashville, Tennessee.\u00a0 John Gaston Hospital\u2019s ER was a busy place where all sorts of knife and gun club victims were treated.\u00a0 When a fellow surgical resident named Russ asked her \u2018what would you be doing if you weren\u2019t here\u2019 over lunch, Rhea replied, \u201cI\u2019d like to be an astronaut.\u201d\u00a0 Russ must have remembered this statement.\u00a0 A few weeks later, he was buzzing through the doctor\u2019s lounge and stopped to tell her, \u201cHey, some friends of mine say they\u2019re taking applications for the Space Shuttle program\u2026and I hear they have an affirmative action program.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Kathy Sullivan was set to become an explorer.\u00a0 She loved the time she spent aboard Dalhousie University\u2019s ocean going research vessel, the CSS <\/span>Hudson.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>She was influenced by her father who worked as an aerospace engineer in Van Nuys, California and the exposure to his work showed she was born to the field.\u00a0 When she told her brother she wanted to pilot the submersible deep sea sub <\/span>Alvin, <\/span><\/i>he asked if she had ever considered becoming an astronaut.\u00a0 She had not and wasn\u2019t even sure she would be qualified when he told her about the new recruitment cycle that was including minorities and women.\u00a0 He asked, \u201cHow many twenty-six-year-old women PhDs can there be in the world?\u201d\u00a0 She brushed off his idea until she ran into a NASA advertisement about the program in a science magazine.\u00a0 It was then that she figured out her sea voyages might indeed translate perfectly to voyages in space.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Judy Resnik\u2019s keen mind wasn\u2019t on space as she and her husband Michael Oldak zipped down the back roads of New Jersey in a Triumph TR6.\u00a0 They were engaging in one of their shared passions, namely time-speed-distance (TDS) rallies where drivers and their navigators \u2018race\u2019 but not for speed.\u00a0 The aim is to drive sections of a pre-designed route in order to reach check points in a certain amount of time.\u00a0 It is a team sport and Judy had the calculating mind to navigate for their TR6.\u00a0 When she met Michael, he was studying electrical engineering and she soon changed her major in math to the EE field.\u00a0 Both ended up working at RCA but Michael decided to go to law school and Judy began questioning if she wanted to spend the rest of her life designing circuit boards.\u00a0 They drifted apart and ended up sitting in a Howard Johnson\u2019s restaurant dividing up their community property before going their separate ways.\u00a0 In 1977, she heard or saw an announcement about NASA\u2019s astronaut selection on radio or in an advertisement.\u00a0 She loved the beach and one sunny day at the shore, a friend asked her what she was scribbling on.\u00a0 \u201cApplying to be an astronaut,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Last but not the least, we have Sally Ride.\u00a0 Sally holds a special place in the story because she would become the first American woman in space.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t actively seek the \u2018honor\u2019 and in some ways regretted being \u2018the one\u2019, but the rest of <\/span>The Six<\/span><\/i> didn\u2019t hold it against her.\u00a0 In fact, the other five pretty much agreed they were glad they had not been put in Sally\u2019s position after all the hoopla was done.\u00a0 Like Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, she was a private person who became a major historical figure in the U.S. space program.\u00a0 She and Armstrong shared a need for privacy and never really cashed in the \u2018space card\u2019 to profit from their new found fame.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A native of California, Sally Ride had a less conventional childhood than most.\u00a0 In 1960, her parents sold their Van Nuys home and took their two daughters on a year long road trip through Europe.\u00a0 It was a great way to learn about new cultures and cuisine, but the day she stood on a tennis court and learned how to serve and close out a set, her ten-year-old mind pointed her toward a life in tennis.\u00a0 She got her sports genes from her college professor father and the truth be told, she was also an avid baseball fan at an early age.\u00a0 Following her beloved LA Dodgers, she could decipher a newspaper box score by age five, perhaps one of the things that led to her love of math.\u00a0 Their father worked with UCLA athletes in his position at Santa Monica College which gave the Ride girls access to big college sports from the inside.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sally was always a good student if something interested her.\u00a0 She had a self confessed lazy streak that would sometimes derail \u2018work\u2019 for \u2018idle time\u2019.\u00a0 She was given a tennis scholarship to Swarthmore College but after three semesters, she decided to return to California and pursue professional tennis.\u00a0 There was no slacking in her pursuit of a tennis career and she soon learned that it did not check enough boxes for her to make it a career.\u00a0 She entered Stanford University on another tennis scholarship and it was there that her passion for science went into overdrive.<\/span><\/p>\n When informed that 60 percent of the students enrolled in physics would drop out, she buckled down and decided to major in astrophysics.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A year and a half before she finished her studies at Stanford, she and her partner Bill were having discussions about the future.\u00a0 Both figured they would end up as professors somewhere until Sally picked up a copy of <\/span>The Stanford Daily<\/span><\/i> to look over at lunch one day.\u00a0 A headline on the front page caught her attention:\u00a0 \u201cNASA To Recruit Women.\u201d\u00a0 The article sparked her interest and she hastily penned a note on a sheet of paper with the Stanford Institute for Plasma Research on the letterhead.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t even bother to re-write it when she found a one word error – she simply scratched it out and re-wrote it.\u00a0 The application she requested arrived a week later.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sally Ride gained the most historical notice from her \u2018first US woman in space\u2019 status while\u00a0 the other <\/span>Six <\/span><\/i>would write their own histories.\u00a0 Shannon Lucid was the last of them to fly in space, but she made five flights and at one time held the record for the longest continuous stay in space by an American and a woman.\u00a0 Rhea Seddon was the fifth to fly and is a veteran of three Space Shuttle Flights.\u00a0 Anna Fisher was the fourth to fly and the first mother to fly in space.\u00a0 Kathy Sullivan, the third of the <\/span>Six<\/span><\/i> to fly made four Shuttle flights and was the first woman to perform a space walk.\u00a0 She is the only person to have walked in space and traveled to the deepest part of the Earth\u2019s ocean.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Judy Resnik was the second to fly and sadly the first woman to die in space.\u00a0 She was on the Space Shuttle <\/span>Challenger\u2019s <\/span><\/i>ill-fated flight and had served as a mentor to Christa McAuliffe, the person selected to be the first \u2018teacher in space\u2019.\u00a0 Sally Ride was asked to serve on both Boards of Inquiry that looked into the <\/span>Challenger <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Columbia <\/span><\/i>disasters that claimed the lives of fourteen<\/span> astronauts.\u00a0 Ride was the lynch pin who had been given documentation that NASA had prior knowledge of the risk of failure in the solid booster rocket O-rings that ultimately doomed <\/span>Challenger.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>She made sure this information came to light in the hearings and it changed the lax oversight culture at NASA that had led to the loss of <\/span>Challenger <\/span><\/i>and its crew.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I have only scratched the surface to give this overview of <\/span>The Six.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 A more detailed study of the lives of these remarkable women can be found in Grush\u2019s excellent book <\/span>The Six – The Untold Story of America\u2019s First Women Astronauts <\/span><\/i>(2023, Scribner).\u00a0 I was gifted a copy but the book can easily be found at your favorite bookseller or via interlibrary loan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Video – Okay, Telstar<\/em> came out in 1962, but here it is, still being played by The Tornados in 2019!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Here are five names that are included in the above title:\u00a0 Rhea Seddon, Shannon Lucid, Kathy Sullivan, Anna Fisher, and Judy Resnik.\u00a0 If you have an idea who these women are, then you are probably a space junky like me.\u00a0 If none of these names rings a bell, then the sixth name will probably […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3294"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3297,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294\/revisions\/3297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}