Mercury 13

A few weeks ago I showed my astronomy class the documentary "Mercury 13". The documentary details the story of the female pilots tested in the late 1950s and early 1960s for NASAs first forays into human space travel.

Seven of the members of the Mercury 13 team. - NASA

Admittedly I knew very little about this moment in NASA's history. The first US female in space was Sally Ride, in 1983, a full 20 years after the Soviet Union put a female in space. The US was far behind the times in gender equality among astronauts. 

This was an excellent documentary that used real footage from the late 1950s and 60s to tell the story. It was depressing to see how qualified this group was, only to be turned down for the simple reason of gender. One of the more disturbing scenes was the real footage of male astronauts being interviewed on the topic of women wanting to join them in space. Most brushed the women off as an annoyance and did not take them seriously. One of the astronauts stated that maybe they should have replaced the chimpanzee (early test flights used animals to determine safety for humans) with a woman...and the crowd laughed. Laughed. Sickening. Disgusting.

NASA is a fantastic organization and the scientific discoveries and technological advancements are incredible. But let us not forget that NASA isn't perfect and there were definitely some dark times as it relates to equality. I highly encourage you to watch this documentary. As of this writing, it streams on Netflix.