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Where No American Woman Had Gone Before
In 1978, NASA selected 35 new astronauts. Among them were the first six women picked as astronaut candidates: Sally Ride, Judith Resnick, Anna Fisher, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, and Rhea Seddon.
“The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts,” by Loren Grush, tells their story. It relates the opening years of the Space Shuttle program.
Their arrival marked a new era at NASA, the end of the test pilot era and the start of a new age in spaceflight. Using the Space Shuttle access to space, NASA claimed, would become as routine as airline travel. This included women in the astronaut pool.
Grush shows all six were highly qualified. Two were physicians. Four were research scientists. All were athletic, one played sports on a semi-pro level. Two had private pilot’s licenses prior to joining NASA. All were interested in space.
Grush follows each of the six through their early lives to their selection as astronauts. She takes readers through their period as astronaut candidate, the grueling training period they experienced. She also examines the lens of publicity they were under. The press treated them as nine-day wonders.
The women expected pushback and male chauvinism from their male counterparts. Before them, NASA had been a boy’s club. (The male astronauts soon accepted them as colleagues.) What was unexpected to them was the stereotyping done by the press. This especially irritated publicity-averse individuals like Sally Ride and Judy Resnick.
Grush also follows them through their flight careers during the years 1983 through 1986, from Sally Ride’s first flight on STS-7 through Judy Resnick’s death on the Challenger disaster. It was a period when all six flew, some more than once. She examines their experiences and reactions to spaceflight. She also follows their personal and professional lives during that period. Among their firsts was the first mother in space, when Anna Fisher flew.
The book winds down after Challenger. Ride was a member of the Rodger’s Commission examining the causes of the disaster, and Grush looks at Ride’s role on the commission. Grush also touches on the careers of the five surviving women following the resumption of the Shuttle program, but only briefly.
“The Six” puts its focus on the glory years of the Shuttle program, 1978 through 1986. The book captures an era when there was only up in space. Well-written and exciting, it is a worthwhile read.
“The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts,” by Loren Grush, Scribner, 2023, 432 pages, $32.50 (hardcover), $16.99 (ebook)
This review was written by Mark Lardas, who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.
Published in History
I have a friend that commanded two space shuttle missions. I think it was his last trip when he delivered the fancy viewing cupola.
That being said, the space shuttle was a sea change for NASA. It was a disaster of a program and they inflicted a lot of undesirable social policies with it. I had an acquaintance who lamented that she was in the running to become the first paraplegic woman in space, that is until the first shuttle disaster. She said her condition wasn’t a disability in space; a lie she told and possibly believed.
The final proof was the unfortunate school teacher that was killed. Why was she there? Space had become a place to showcase government progressive policies and not much else.
I don’t care if a crippled woman goes to space, but I resent sending one on my dime just so we can check a progressive box.
This is the best part of the new space race. Everyone not trying to keep pace with SpaceX is going to lose. Space is privatized finally and now we will make proper progress, not political progressivism.
The reason the space shuttle exploded had little to do with the vessel having a woman aboard.
McAuliffe was aboard as a way to have the American public feel that this effort was something we all could be part of. Our tax monies paid for these adventures.
So the PR people at NASA decided to include a teacher. Given that it had been America’s school teachers who had enthused about space travel from the days of John Glenn, it did not seem that unfair.
During the days before the shuttle exploded, my 4th grade son was so excited. If a teacher could go into space, then he and his friends would get to go, sometime when they were older.
Two engineers tried to get through to NASA in the 24 hours prior to that Tuesday Am lift off to explain exactly why the Challenger should be kept grounded. When that effort failed, the two tried to get through to the White House, but that effort was not successful either.
I assume what happened in my household after the mid-air explosion was true in other homes as well. The grammar school kids I knew who had been so keen on space exploration no longer seemed to have much interest in it.
Well, of course. But that wasn’t anything I said or implied.
actually what it says that getting even the easiest degree was good enough to ride in the shuttle. It makes one wonder if they listened to engineers instead of politicians, maybe that representative of unchallenging education might have lived.
My story pales in comparison but I was once on a flight from Houston to Boston with a female astronaut. I had to Google it but it was probably Catherine Coleman. We were sitting next to each other chatting about nothing. One of us asked about what we do for a living and I talked about my engineering job. She said she was an engineer too. I was pressing her on what kind of engineering when a little girl came up to us and asked if she was an astronaut. She said yes, and pulled out an 8×10, autographed it, and chatted with her for a bit. She did this a few more times. It was a very interesting flight.