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Geraldyn "Jerrie" Cobb, the first woman to have successfully trained NASA astronauts, has passed away. She was 88 years old.
Cobb, a pioneering female pilot, was a member of Mercury 13, a group of women who, in the early 1960s, managed to follow the same physically demanding astronaut training as male candidates.
NASA canceled the program before any of these women could fly into space, but Cobb remained a staunch supporter of female pilots throughout her life, even going as far as to face the venerable Mercury astronaut 7 John Glenn in Congress to defend the right of a woman to be an astronaut.
When that did not work, she changed course and spent much of her life as a missionary pilot in the Amazon jungle, delivering medicine, food and clothing to extremely remote areas. This work earned him a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1981.
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On Mercury 13
Thirteen women – known as Mercury 13 – were recruited in the late 1950s and early 1960s to become astronauts, but NASA ended the program. It will take another two decades before women go into space.
- Myrtle Cagle: Born in North Carolina in 1925, Cagle learned to fly at the age of 12 and had obtained her private pilot's license at the age of 19. She tried to become a female service pilot in the air force during the Second World War. After returning home, she became a flight instructor and, after the cancellation of the Mercury 13 plans, she continued to participate in air shows and was the second woman to earn the Cell and Engine Mechanic qualification. from the Georgia Technical Institute.
- Geraldyn "Jerrie" Cobb: Born in Oklahoma in 1931, Cobb was only 16 years old when she obtained her private pilot's license. Prior to joining Mercury 13, she spent three years delivering aircraft, such as B-17 bombers, around the world. After being denied her chance to fly in space, she became a missionary pilot in the Amazon jungle, delivering medicine, food and clothing to the most remote areas. Because of this work, she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1981. Cobb died in March at the age of 88.
- Jan and Marion Dietrich: Born in 1926 in California, twin sisters Jan and Marion Dietrich were the only girls in the aviation class at their high school. They quickly earned their private pilot's license and placed second in the Transcontinental Air Race in 1951. Marion worked as a reporter for the Oakland Tribune and flew charter flights and ferries before Jan and she were selected to do so. part of Mercury 13. Marion died in 1974 of cancer. Jan passed away in 2008.
- Wally Funk: Born in New Mexico in 1939, Funk has been practicing as a professional pilot since 1957. Her first job at the age of 20 was in Oklahoma as a civilian flight instructor for military officers. the US Army. In 1970, she received the commercial glider qualification and taught aeronautical sciences at Redondo High School in California. She also did a goodwill tour for three years, covering Europe and the Middle East. In 1974, she became the first woman aviation safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington, DC.
- Janey Hart: Born in Michigan in 1921, Hart was an accomplished rider and a passionate sailor. She earned her pilot's license at age 18 and was the first Michigan woman to fly a helicopter in the 1950s. Before joining Mercury 13, Hart served with the Red Cross Corps during the Second World War. , driving Detroit trucks to military bases. She was married to a senator and was a prominent activist for women's rights. Hart, founder of the National Women's Organization, died in 2015 at the age of 93.
- Jean Hixson: Born in Illinois in 1922, Hixson earned his pilot license at the age of 18. She trained as a military pilot during World War II and flew B-25 twin-engine bombers as air force pilots. In 1957, she became the second woman to cross the wall of sound. After Mercury 13 was not accepted by NASA, Hixson moved to Akron, Ohio, where she worked as a flight instructor and instructor. She died in 1984.
- Gene Nora Stumbough Jessen: Born in Illinois in 1937, Jessen fell in love with the leak at a very young age. She learned to fly while she attended the University of Oklahoma and was a flight instructor and professional pilot when she was selected for the Mercury 13 program. collapsed, she became a sales demo driver for the Beechcraft factory in Kansas. She remained active in aviation as a member of the Boise Airport Commission and President of the Ninety-Nines Aviation Group, a group of flying women.
- Irene Leverton: Born in 1927 in Illinois, Leverton joined the Civil Air Patrol in 1944 while flying the Piper J-3 Cub. It has also served as a pilot agriculture project by spraying crops in Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas. After the Mercury 13 was closed, she became an FAA-designated accident prevention advisor, participated in races and conducted search and rescue flights, as well as flights for the US Border Patrol. ;Arizona. She retired from the plane in 2010 and died in 2017 at the age of 90.
- Sarah Ratley: Born in 1933 in Kansas, Ratley earned her pilot's license at age 17. She became a member of Ninety-Nines, a pilot association created by Amelia Earhart. She was a Whirly Girl helicopter pilot and worked as an electrician at AT & T when she became a member of Mercury 13. In 2015, she worked as an accountant but continued to fly.
- Bernice Steadman: Born in Michigan in 1925, Steadman obtained her pilot's license at age 17 before obtaining her driver's license. Prior to joining Mercury 13, she founded Trimble Aviation, where she operated her own flying school and charter service at Bishop's Flint Airport, Michigan. In 1955 she won the Transcontinental Air Race and the Women's International. Aerial race in Cuba. Later in her life, Steadman co-founded the International Museum of Air and Women's Space in Ohio. She died in 2017 at the age of 89.
- Jerri Truhill: Born in Pampa, Texas, in 1928, Truhill fell in love with flying at the age of 4 and started taking classes at age 15 without the knowledge of his parents. Before joining Mercury 13, she flew twin-engine North American B-25s for Texas Instruments alongside her future husband, Joe Truhill. Later, she flew a P-51 Mustang in pink lycra outfit for Monsanto. She died in 2013 at the age of 85 years.
- Rhea Woltman: Born in Minnesota in 1928, Woltman learned to fly only after several years of teaching in a single-class school. She started as a private pilot, then became an airline pilot and eventually became a flight instructor. She was a chartered pilot in Houston when she was named one of the Mercury 13. In the early 1970s, she moved to Colorado to attend a glider training and tow cadets from the United States. Air Force Academy. She is a registered parliamentarian, which means she oversees regulations at formal meetings.
Sources: Aviation Hall of Fame, Detroit Free Press, New York Times, Dallas Observer, Global Spaceflight, Colorado Women's Hall of Fame, National Air and Space Museum Space of the Smithsonian, Gizmodo, International Air and Space Museum for Women, University of Akron
"Party, but never forgotten," tweeted Thursday morning the Oklahoma Hall of Fame at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum. "A true pioneer, STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] lawyer and model. We'll miss you, Jerrie! "
She died in Florida on March 18, according to a statement from her family. The Associated Press reported that she died after a brief illness.
"Having lived sixty-six years filled with pilot and defender female pilots, and shared more than fifty years of her life with the indigenous Indian tribes of the Amazon, humble smile and eyes from Jerrie's blue sky are always present in our hearts, "the statement read. "It is normal for Jerrie to be born and leave us in the month of the woman's story."
The announcement of his death comes a day after NASA's announcement Wednesday of astronaut Christina Koch, who will perform the longest space flight in the history of the planet, to 328 days.
Mercury 13
Cobb, originally from Oklahoma, was 12 years old when she learned to fly and earned her pilot's license at age 16.
At 28, she had accumulated 7,000 hours in the cockpit – more than Glenn. And it was at this point that the pioneering scientist Randy Lovelace approached her in September 1959 to ask her to take the space resistance test.
Lovelace helped NASA to choose the first class of astronauts and thought that women would be good candidates: they were lighter, shorter, more resistant to radiation and could withstand the pain, heat, pain and cold and loneliness.
But the test had to be done in secret. Women were not allowed to be part of the military pilots – a requirement of the astronaut candidates at the time.
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After Cobb was operated by Lovelace, a dozen more women were chosen, but NASA closed the program when they became aware of it. Cobb and his female colleagues took their fight in Congress in 1962.
"As pilots, we fly and share mutual respect with male pilots from the world of aviation, primarily male," Cobb told US Congressmen at the time. "We see only a place in the future of the space of our country without discrimination. (…) There are good medical and scientific reasons for using women in the country. space."
But Glenn opposed their stance by declaring in Congress that "the fact that women are not in this field is a fact of our social order".
Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova exploded in space the following year. It will take another two decades before American women finally have a chance, when Sally Ride will embark on the Space Shuttle Challenger in June 1983. Ride died in 2012.
"Open the door for us"
Cobb then carried out humanitarian aid missions in the Amazon jungle, a call that she followed for decades.
"In what was perhaps going to be her greatest contribution to humanity, she carried out dangerous humanitarian aid missions to serve the indigenous populations of the Amazon, discovering tribes of people. Indians never known to man and helping them maintain life, "wrote his family. "Even in the Amazon, she was discriminated against on the basis of sex while trying to steal for aid groups."
For this work she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1981 and honored by the governments of Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia and Peru. She even received the Wright Wright Air Industry Award for "Humanitarian Contributions to Modern Aviation".
But she remained attentive to the destiny of the astronauts of the space agency she dreamed of joining.
When NASA decided to allow John Glenn to fly at age 77, Cobb and others across the country fought for it to also have a chance. She never had that chance.
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"So sad to learn of the death of #JerrieCobb," said Ellen Stofan, director of John and Adrienne Mars at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. "She should have gone into space, but turned her life into a life of service gracefully."
Anna Fisher, one of the first six women hired by NASA in 1978 to join the astronaut corps, told the Houston Chronicle in June that she felt a sense of overwhelming gratitude towards the Mercury 13 – and a feeling of overwhelming guilt.
"They worked so hard and they wanted it so much, and then we caught the wave at the right time, as the company evolved," said Fisher, who flew to the Space Shuttle just once. 1984. "I felt so grateful and so sad, in a way, that they could not realize their dream, but they did so by opening the door."
Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and science for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at [email protected] or at Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.
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