Also included in this series are letters from the public, supporters, colleagues, etc. In addition, the humanitarian unit of We All Fly, a forthcoming general aviation gallery at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, (following our current renovation) will display a Cobb hammock, flight equipment, and wooden bird and animal figures, hand-carved gifts of Amazonian indigenous people. Jerrie Cobb Papers, 1931-2012; item description, dates. It failed. Processed: March 2019By: Laura Peimer, with assistance from Ashley Thomas.The Schlesinger Library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit. The bulk of the materials consists of television interviews and profiles of Cobb as well as other Mercury 13 pilots when they achieved public attention around the time of John Glenn's return to space on the Shuttle Discovery mission in 1998. Thats the question director Giovanna Sardelli hopes audiences will ask after seeing They Promised Her the Moon at The Old Globe. But Im happy flying here in Amazonas, serving my brethren. [16] Liz Carpenter, the Executive Assistant to Vice President Lyndon Johnson, drafted a letter to NASA administrator James E. Webb questioning these requirements, but Johnson did not send the letter, instead writing across it: "Let's stop this now! Jerrie Cobb was NASA's first female astronaut candidate, passing astronaut testing in 1961. While the seven original male astronauts averaged under 3,000 flight hours each, Cobb brought over 10,000 hours herself. "They Never Became Astronauts: The Story of the Mercury 13." Oklahoma native Jerrie Cobb received her pilots license at age 17, her commercial pilots license at 18, and flight and ground instructors rating at 21. She served as a test pilot for Aero Commander in Bethany, Oklahoma, early in her career. Cobb passed all the training exercises, ranking in the top 2% of all astronaut candidates of both genders. These Women Trained For Space in 1961 | Medium Jerrie Cobb trained on NASA's Multi-Axis Space Test Inertia Facility (MASTIF) in 1960, shortly after the male Mercury 7 astronauts did so. Because of other family and job commitments, not all of the women were asked to take these tests. All of them met NASAs basic criteria. Greene, Nick. Jerrie Cobb, member of NASA's secret 'Mercury 13', dies at 88 Cobb and Lovelace were assisted in their efforts by Jacqueline Cochran, who was a famous American aviatrix and an old friend of Lovelace's. Life Magazine named her one of the nine women of the "100 most important young people in the United States". [9][10], In May 1961 NASA Administrator James Webb appointed Cobb as a consultant to the NASA space program.[6]. Geraldyn M. Cobb (March 5, 1931 March 18, 2019), commonly known as Jerrie Cobb, was an American aviator. See Series I for additional photographs. "[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. Its photo gallery FAQ states that all of the images in the photo . Then came the male astronauts (including John Glenn, who had . So exceptional that her stress test scores exceeded those of the astronauts in the Mercury 7 Project. We seek, only, a place in our nations space future without discrimination, she told a special House subcommittee on the selection of astronauts. Why did it take us so long? They contacted President Kennedy and vice-president Johnson. They found a freedom in flying; a way they could have total control.". This test simulated bringing a spinning spacecraft under control and was one of many that the women of the Mercury 13 went through in order to qualify for space flight. Female space pioneer and member of the Mercury 13, Jerrie Cobb - Chron The Mercury 13: Meet the Woman Astronauts Grounded by NASA - History The freedom was just marvelous. - Jerrie Cobb, reflecting on a flight with her father in 1943. Cobb maintained that the geriatric space study should also include an older woman. She went on to earn her Multi-Engine, Instrument, Flight Instructor, and Ground Instructor ratings as well as her Airline Transport license. Because of other family and job commitments, not all of the women were asked to take these tests. She is the "her" in They Promised Her the Moon . In total, 68 percent of the "lady astronauts" passed, where only 56 percent of the male trainees passed. U.S. Air Force Medical Service/Wikimedia CommonsDr. When Geraldyn M. Cobb was born on March 5, 1931 in Norman, Oklahoma, no one would have imagined the heights [] This is the story of how rampant sexism kept a pioneering pilot out of space history. [2], By 1959, at age 28, Cobb was a pilot and manager for Aero Design and Engineering Company, which also made the Aero Commander aircraft she used in her record-making feats, and she was one of the few women executives in aviation. Jerrie Cobb undergoing physiological testing (NASA). While still a student at Oklahoma City Classen High School, she earned a private pilot's license at the age of sixteen. While some duplicates have been removed, additional duplicates and similar types of materials can be found throughout the collection. NASA's first female astronaut candidate, pilot Jerrie Cobb, has died. Jerrie Cobb, first woman to pass astronaut testing, dies | CBC News Loaded. And as. In the end, thirteen women passed the same physical examinations that the Lovelace Foundation had developed for NASAs astronaut selection process. When Lovelace announced Cobbs success at a 1960 conference in Stockholm, Sweden, she immediately became the subject of media coverage. The Oklahoma Historical Society and Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study have significant Cobb artifacts collections and archives. This page was last edited on 10 March 2023, at 10:23. Jerrie Cobb, America's first female astronaut candidate, dies at 88 A few of these pilots took additional tests. She was dismissed one week after commenting: "I'm the most unconsulted consultant in any government agency. [21] Cobb believed that it was necessary to also send an aged woman on a space flight in order to determine whether the same effects witnessed on men would be witnessed on women. Then it took 12 more years before a woman actually flew an American spacecraft. How I would love to see our beautiful blue planet Earth floating in the blackness of space. You have permission to edit this article. 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. She was a bush pilot in missionary endeavors in the Amazon for the next forty years and established the Jerrie Cobb Foundation, Inc. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1981 for her work with the native people of the Amazon and was later the recipient of the Amelia Earhart Award and Medal. Specifically, NASA wanted to observe whether the effects of weightlessness had positive consequences on the balance, metabolism, blood flow, and other bodily functions of an elderly person. But Jacqueline Cochran, the record-setting aviatrix who had funded the Lovelace tests, testified against continuing the program at that time . Those hearings found no sympathetic ear among the Mercury Seven; John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, said, "The fact that women are not in this field is a fact of our social order." In the early 1960s, when the first groups of astronauts were selected, NASA didn't think to look at the qualified female pilots who were available. In 1978, Cobb replaced her aging Aero Commander with a Britten-Norman BN-2A Islander well suited for short takeoffs and landings on cleared muddy patches deep in the rainforest. In 1961, Cobb became the first woman to pass astronaut testing. Having the playwright in the room is usually a gift.". 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8, Continue reading your article witha WSJ subscription, Already a subscriber? The Space Review: You've come a long way, baby! But Cobb had no interest in working as a secretary, though she did want to become an astronaut. "Its not the same way men talk about it. Still hopeful, Cobb emerged in 1998 to make another pitch for space as NASA prepared to launch Mercury astronaut John Glenn the first American to orbit the world on shuttle Discovery at age 77. In 1962 Cobb, with fellow Mercury 13 astronaut Jane Hart, testified at a Congressional hearing about allowing American women to fly into space, but the American space program's astronaut corps would remain closed to women until 1978. Geraldyn "Jerrie" M. Cobb, first woman to pass astronaut testing in 1961, Humanitarian Aid Pilot in Amazonia, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, author, and lifelong advocate for women pilots in space, passes away at 88. He invited Ollstein to the Powers New Voices Festival in January 2018 to produce the play as a reading, matching her with director Giovanna Sardelli, who had spent time looking for a womens history story and was immediately intrigued by the hook, as she puts it: "What happens to somebody when theyre not allowed to live up to their potential?". "I would give my life to fly in space, I really would," Cobb told The Associated Press at age 67 in 1998. Born in Oklahoma in 1931, Cobb became a pilot at only 16 years old. Flying solo suited Cobb, whose faith, skill and determination guided her in her missions. You cant believe how they talked about Cobb in the press. She spent an entire year screening nearly 800 female pilots to identify potential astronaut trainees, and she found many of the women had racked up significantly more flight time than the male astronauts. In 1978, the first year NASA admitted women into its program, Sally Ride broke that barrier. NASA's Early Stand on Women Astronauts: "No Present Plans to Include 2016 Oklahoma Hall of Fame Created with SpaceCraft, (corner of NW 13th Street & Shartel Avenue). 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. Cobb used her softball earnings to buy a plane. The Soviet Union ended up putting the first woman into space in 1963: Valentina Tereshkova. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. American pilot Jerrie Cobb hoped to be "the first Western woman in space," according to an interview she gave to CBC's Take 30 back in September 1963. Undeterred, Lovelace and Flickinger found an ally in Jerrie Cobb, an accomplished woman aviator who earned her commercial license when she was just 18. In this one area of the space race, American men had simply chosen not to compete. Recapping The Right Stuff: Season 1 wrap-up | Astronomy.com Audiovisual, 1930s-2012 (#Vt-260.1-Vt-260.9, DVD-147.1). In 1960, Jerrie Cobb was rapidly becoming a celebrity. [1], Born on March 5, 1931, in Norman, Oklahoma,[2] Cobb was the daughter of Lt. Col. William H. Cobb and Helena Butler Stone Cobb. Weeks after being born Cobb's family moved to Washington, D.C., where her grandfather, Ulysses Stevens Stone, was serving in the United States House of Representatives. Although Cobb garnered public support for her mission, NASA once again did not provide Cobb with the opportunity for space flight. Because women required less oxygen than men and typically had a lower mass, Lovelace pushed for a female astronaut training program. There are also letters from and photographs with Cobb and her fianc Jack Ford from the 1950s. Jerrie Cobb, Record-Breaking Pilot and Advocate for Female Spaceflight Ollstein felt obliged to write about the story when she stumbled upon it 10 years ago during a residency at the University of Oklahoma. An appointment is necessary to use any audiovisual material. Instead of making her an astronaut, NASA tapped her as a consultant to talk up the space program. By the fall of 1961, a total of 25 women, ranging in age from 23 to 41, went to the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Episode four of the first season, "Prime Crew", is dedicated to her memory.[26]. One newspaper described her as a pretty 29-year-old miss who would probably take high heels along on her first space flight if given the chance. Another printed her weight and measurements, stating, The lady space cadet is five-feet, seven inches tall, weighs 121 pounds, and measures 36-26-34.. Also included are videotapes of archival footage of some of the astronaut tests that Cobb underwent, and footage related to Cobb's speed and distance records. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. America's first female astronaut candidate, pilot Jerrie Cobb, who pushed for equality in space but never reached its heights, has died. [22] Many aviators and astronauts of the time believed this was a failed chance for NASA to right a wrong they had made years before. The bulk of the series consists of publicity images of Cobb at promotional and award events or receptions surrounding her world record flights. [23][24], Laurel Ollstein's 2017 play They Promised Her the Moon (revised in 2019) tells the story of Jerrie Cobb and her struggle to become an astronaut. 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. In the early 1960s, the space race heated up. Lovelace and Flickinger wanted to implement a similar testing program in the U.S., but NASA was already committed to using male military test pilots for astronaut testing.