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Right Stuff, Wrong Sex:

America's First Women in Space Program
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On June 17, 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space. Curiously, unlike every previous milestone in the ''space race,'' this event did not spur NASA to catch up by flying an American woman. Though there were suitable candidates-two years earlier, thirteen female pilots recruited by the private Woman in Space program had passed a strenuous physical exam and were ready for another stage of astronaut testing-American women would not escape earth's gravity for another twenty years.In Right Stuff, Wrong Sex, Margaret Weitekamp shows how the Woman in Space program—conceived by Dr. William Randolph Lovelace and funded by world-famous pilot and businesswoman Jacqueline Cochran—challenged prevailing attitudes about women's roles and capabilities. In examining the experiences of the Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees (as the candidates called themselves), this book documents the achievements and frustrated hopes of a remarkable group of women whose desire to serve their country fell victim to hostility toward such aspirations. Drawing from archival research and interviews with participants, Weitekamp traces the rise and fall of the Woman in Space program within the context of the cold war and the thriving women's aviation culture of the 1950s. Weitekamp's study sheds light on a little-known but compelling chapter in the history of the U.S. space program and the rise of the women's movement in America. 10 halftones.

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. ""Going to Town for the Men of Science"": Randy Lovelace and Jackie Cochran2. ""This Buck Rogers Nonsense"": Aviation and Aerospace Medicine3. WASPs, Whirly-Girls, and Ninety-Nines: Female Pilots and Postwar Women's Aviation4. ""Should a Girl Be First in Space?"": Betty Skelton, Ruth Nichols, and Jerrie Cobb5. ""Initial Examinations for Female Astronaut Candidates"": Lovelace's Woman in Space Program6. ""I Offer Myself'No Less Can I Do"": Jerrie Cobb, NASA, and the Pensacola Cancellation7. ""A Fact of Our Social Order"": Jerrie Cobb, John Glenn, and the House Subcommittee Hearings8. ""Send Jerrie into Space"": Several Epilogues to Lovelace's Woman in Space ProgramConclusionNotesEssay on SourcesIndex

""Weitekamp has done a terrific job of capturing a fascinating story.""

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