Mercury 13 Page #2

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a woman at the same time.

After the war,

they didnt want to give that up.

They wouldnt give up their independence.

A lot of em stayed in aviation.

And a lot of em didnt want

to go back to the kitchen.

They wanted their freedom again.

And these WASPs really were great mentors.

They organized these air races

called the Powder Puff Derby.

The first one I flew in was 52.

You know, when youre 18,

you dont have fear,

and you dont think of it as being brave.

You think of adventures and having fun.

Because 18-year-olds think

nothing will ever happen to em.

You know, Powder Puff Derby

has a great ring to it.

And it was always great to say,

Yeah, I flew the Powder Puff Derby.

When youre at the takeoff line

and the flag drops,

you put the power to it, and you take off,

and I stayed very close to the runway

to get my speed up.

The women that you meet who are

flying in those air races are wonderful,

and theyre very inspiring.

And you make lifelong friends.

What a thrill it is to have won this 13th

Annual All-Women International Air Race.

Mary and I feel very proud of this.

Were real happy to be in Florida.

What a wonderful state you have.

The air racing was very important.

It proved the mettle. It proved that

these gals knew what they were doing.

The racing fraternity was very strong.

The bond was very strong.

On October 4, 1957,

a world-stirring event took place.

Sputnik! My word.

To see this thing going around the world.

Space was very, very exciting then.

Everybody was into this space business.

I do remember

Mothers extraordinary enthusiasm

when she knew that the Sputnik

was gonna be traversing in the sky.

She got us all out of the house and

looking up at the sky, and just, I mean,

she had grapefruit juice in her hand,

and she poured it all over herself.

She was just so excited.

How quickly it went

from just sending up Sputniks

and then sending up animals.

I think everybody was astounded

at those accomplishments.

I remember the Russians had,

at that point in time,

had succeeded in every single endeavor.

They were ahead of us.

The United States needed to catch up.

One of these seven young men

will be the first American into space.

These are the astronauts.

United States Project Mercury.

When this program started,

a lot of the military guys wanted in it.

So they developed criteria

for qualification to be an astronaut.

Each must be:

the graduate of a navy or air force

test pilot school,

1,500 hours of flight time

qualified in jet aircraft,

an engineering background,

and 511 or less.

Thirty-two candidates reported to the

Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico

for an exhaustive series

of physical examinations.

These tests were divided between those

given under normal clinical procedures

and a series used for the first time

in Project Mercury.

NASA had picked Dr. Lovelace

to set the standards for the astronauts

in the program.

So he had developed the testing,

and he had conducted the testing.

The question is,

is Dr. Lovelaces work done?

We hope to continue to participate

in the program.

I might say that all our doctors

and technicians

are a little tired right at the moment.

My father was

Dr. William Randolph Lovelace II.

He had a great smile,

but he could also be very serious.

He was a surgeon first and foremost,

but was always involved with aviation,

then aerospace medicine.

He was invited to be

head of space medicine for NASA.

That was a fun time

because the seven astronauts came to

our house for dinner almost every night.

And we were instructed

to make conversation with everyone.

So we did, and ate with them,

voted on them each night

in terms of who we liked the best,

and would tell our father

in the morning at breakfast.

It was always Scott Carpenter.

It was just an amazing time.

Theyd make fun of my father

and the tests that he made them do, and

But there was obviously respect there.

I think the tests out of Dr.

Lovelaces place in Albuquerque out there,

uh, certainly some of the tests we had

out there were the most trying.

And its rather difficult to pick one,

because if you figure how many openings

there are on the human body

and how far you can go in any one of em

You gave it away.

Now you answer which one would be

the toughest for you, and thats it.

The cookie cutters. Cookie-cutter males.

And cookie-cutter means

there was no difference in their religion,

in their state of origin, or anything.

They were just all exactly the same.

My father felt very strongly about having

a group of women astronauts.

If youre a pioneer, you just start

with your instincts, I guess.

He felt that women had

a definite role in space,

that there were... physically and

emotionally, that they had some attributes

that were stronger

than the male astronauts.

And he wanted to test their capability

by comparing their test results to

the test results of the male astronauts.

Clearly,

one of the women in his life

that catapulted that into action

was his relationship with Jackie Cochran.

Im Jacqueline Cochran, and I really would

like to be the first woman in space.

Anyone whos spent as much time in the air

as I have in the last 34 years

is bound to yearn

to go a little bit farther.

Jackie Cochran was my godmother.

And

Floyd Odlum actually was

on our board of directors.

I think he was the president.

He was the original chairman of our board

for the Lovelace Clinic.

So he turned to Floyd Odlum and Jackie,

and they financed that study.

This was his program.

Dr. Lovelace did it on his own,

outside of his contract with NASA

and invited 25 women

to come and take the physical exam,

very similar

to what the astronauts were taking.

They had a list

of the top pilots that they knew.

And one of the first that was called

was Jerrie Cobb.

She was a great gal.

I was asked by Dr. Lovelace

and General Flickinger

to be the first woman

to go through these astronaut tests.

This was in 1959.

Both of them had just come back

from a scientific meeting in Moscow.

At that time, they had heard the Russians

were gonna train women cosmonauts.

And this was over three years ago.

So they thought we ought to get together

and start doing something.

They asked me if I would be the first

woman to undergo the astronaut test,

which I was, couldnt say yes fast enough,

and then...

Now, I knew Jerrie

because she flew the Aero Commander.

She had done a lot of flying.

She flew a lot into South America.

And I knew her life.

I knew Jerrie Cobb, yeah.

She was a good pilot.

But I think I could fly

as well as she could.

She may not think so,

but I think I couldve.

Why, in the Western program,

do you think there is a need,

if you feel there is a need,

for women in space?

Well, its the same thing as,

is there a need for men in space?

I mean, if were going to send

a human being into space,

we should send the one most qualified.

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