Jerrie Cobb, one of the most talented pilots in history, has passed away

Geraldyn "Jerrie" Mr. Cobb, an aviation pioneer and women's space advocate, passed away on March 18 at his home in Florida, his family revealed. She was 88 years old.

Cobb is perhaps best known for his participation in what became known as "Mercury 13", a group of 13 women who successfully screened in 1960 and 1961 to determine their suitability considered astronauts under the direction of Dr. Randolph Lovelace. Cobb is ranked among the top 2% of those who have already passed the battery of tests for candidates, men and women alike.

However, the effort financed by private funds has not been officially approved by NASA. A Netflix documentary on the experience, published in 2018, gave a clear verdict on why women had been excluded from NASA early in the space agency – from "good prejudices to" 39; old, "as one of the participants said.

But Cobb's life was more than just that experience. Born March 5, 1931 in Norman, Oklahoma, Cobb passed her private pilot test at age 16 and earned a professional pilot's license at age 18. As there were few opportunities for women pilots in the post-war period, she had allowed him to maintain his flying habit, notably by dropping leaflets from the circus, dusting crops, waiting for the tables and playing in a professional women's softball team.

In the 1950s, Cobb attempted to set several records for speed, altitude and distance. became the first woman to fly in the Paris air show; and was only the fourth American to have received the Gold Wings from the International Aeronautical Federation.

Following the Mercury 13 incident, Congress began investigating why NASA had decided not to fly women with similar qualifications to men participating in the Mercury flight program. Cobb was among those who were called to speak, giving compelling testimony in order to open NASA's first space flight programs to women.

At a special sub-committee hearing in 1962, Cobb told lawmakers: "We, female pilots who wish to participate in research and participate in space exploration, do not try to participate in the battle of the sexes. As pilots, we fly and share mutual respect with male pilots in the world of aviation, mostly male. We know very well how to live together in our profession. We only see a place in the space space of our nation without discrimination. "

She has maintained this belief all her life. When John Glenn flew into space in 1998, at the age of 78, for the purpose of geriatric research, Cobb said that NASA should send a second person into space in the same goal: a woman and why not she. Despite meeting with Glenn and NASA Administrator Dan Goldin at the time, the agency had never done anything else.

With the advent of the space shuttle program, women would eventually break into NASA. In 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space. And when Eileen Collins became NASA's first female shuttle commander in July 1999, Cobb joined other members of Mercury 13 at the launch, at Collins' invitation, for the launch. The shuttle commander has given his place, in part, to the interests of Cobb and others.

The space agency has progressively diversified and, more recently, on its last two classes of astronauts (2013 and 2017), nine of the 20 astronaut candidates were women. And in 2017, Peggy Whitson, who has flown in space three times, broke the record of time spent in space by an American astronaut, with a cumulative total of 665 days in orbit aboard the International Space Station. On Wednesday, NASA announced that another woman, Christina Koch, would spend nearly a year in space. Cobb may have died, but his legacy is still alive in orbit.

Update: This story was changed to reflect the actual date of Cobb's death on March 18th.