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>Funk, then a 21-year-old pilot, was the youngest of the 13 women who passed the same rigorous testing as the Mercury Seven male astronauts in NASA's program th

by TMWNN 5y ago

>Funk, then a 21-year-old pilot, was the youngest of the 13 women who passed the same rigorous testing as the Mercury Seven male astronauts in NASA's program that first sent Americans into space between 1961 and 1963, but were denied the chance to become astronauts themselves because of their gender. This is completely wrong. The Mercury 13 were given (most of) the physical examinations that early astronaut candidates were given. While it is true that the US government was not actively looking for women astronauts, these women were not eligible because * For NASA Astronaut Group 1 (1959, Mercury Seven), no applications were taken; the US identified military pilots and brought them in for further testing. No American woman was a military pilot. * For Group 2 (1962, "The Next Nine"), applications were taken but being a fighter test pilot was a requirement, and there were no female test pilots. * For Group 3 (1963), the test pilot requirement was dropped but having fighter pilot experience was not. While women were among the first shuttle-dedicated astronauts (1978's Group 8), they were all mission specialists. The first NASA female pilot astronaut, Eileen Collins (fighter test pilot), was chosen in 1990. >Amazon's billionaire founder Jeff Bezos will be joined by Wally Funk, one of the 13 women who passed NASA's astronaut training program This is also wrong; the physical tests the Mercury 13 passed were not "NASA's astronaut training program", but part of the initial screening process. Not all male candidates who passed the physical tests became astronauts, either.

scubbo 5y ago
If "female" implies "not a [fighter/test] military pilot", and "not a [fighter/test] military pilot" implies "not eligible", then it is true to say that "female" implies "not eligible".
- niggerfucker1 5y ago
  You might be mentally retarded. :(
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >If "female" implies "not a [fighter/test] military pilot", and "not a [fighter/test] military pilot" implies "not eligible", then it is true to say that "female" implies "not eligible". My point is that the rules weren't put there to exclude women but to screen out the applicant pool to make easier identifying those that NASA thought would be the best candidates. By proactively choosing from active-duty military pilots, for example, the Mercury Seven evaluation board missed out on Neil Armstrong (a civilian). By screening for only those applicants with fighter pilot experience, the Group 2 evaluators would have missed out on Mercury Seven's Scott Carpenter, who flew multiengine planes. By excluding those with a minimum amount of flight hours, Group 3 missed out on Don Lind (physics PhD and Navy fighter vet who didn't meet the minimum). Etc., etc. Taken literally, "Mercury 13" would imply that twice as many qualified women astronauts existed in 1959 as men. That's in and of itself ridiculous. Most men who passed the physical tests the Mercury 7 and Mercury 13 passed weren't chosen to become astronauts, either.
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    > My point is that the rules weren't put there to exclude women but to screen out the applicant pool to make easier identifying those that NASA thought would be the best candidates. What makes you think the test/fight pilot rules weren’t just a pretext?
    - readflaggedcomm 5y ago
      Maybe the skills just happened to overlap, like high-G maneuvers.
    - CheezeIt 5y ago
      Because obviously. If you’re starting a new program to send people to outer space and beat the Commies, what drives your decision making? Is it (a) getting the best people, who’ve already acquitted themselves under stressful conditions admirably (b) making some women happy (c) eliminating women under some pretext, just to mess with them
jedberg 5y ago
If you want to be really accurate, the women actually participated in a private test that replicated the NASA training program, so NASA had nothing to do with it. But the entire point of that private program was the show NASA "hey look women can do this too!". And that's kind of the point. That they were only being denied because of their gender.
- jhfsergnvx 5y ago
  You mean their sex, not their gender. Gender as a concept hadn't even been invented yet: > Sexologist John Money introduced the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a role in 1955. Before his work, it was uncommon to use the word gender to refer to anything but grammatical categories.[1][2] However, Money's meaning of the word did not become widespread until the 1970s, when feminist theory embraced the concept of a distinction between biological sex and the social construct of gender. From the Wikipedia page for gender
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >If you want to be really accurate, the women actually participated in a private test that replicated the NASA training program, so NASA had nothing to do with it. Correct, except the word "training". The Mercury 13 took physiological tests that replicated NASA evaluations of prospective astronaut candidates, nothing more. The Mercury 7 didn't go through a "training program" after selection; such didn't formally start until the shuttle era. >But the entire point of that private program was the show NASA "hey look women can do this too!". And that's kind of the point. >That they were only being denied because of their gender. My point is that the rules weren't put there to exclude women but to screen the applicant pool to make easier identifying those that NASA sincerely thought would be the best candidates. By proactively choosing from active-duty military pilots, for example, the Mercury Seven evaluation board missed out on Neil Armstrong (a civilian). By screening for only those applicants with fighter pilot experience, the Group 2 evaluators would have missed out on Mercury Seven's Scott Carpenter, who flew multiengine planes. By excluding those with a minimum amount of flight hours, Group 3 missed out on Don Lind (physics PhD and Navy fighter vet who didn't meet the minimum). Etc., etc. Let me repeat: Most men who passed the tests the Mercury 7 and Mercury 13 passed weren't chosen to become astronauts, either. Taken literally, "Mercury 13" would imply that twice as many qualified women astronauts existed in 1959 as men. That's in and of itself ridiculous. To say that the only thing keeping the Mercury 13 from flying into space was an arbitrary NASA decision, and nothing else, is simply not true.
jakelazaroff 5y ago
The first woman to become a US fighter pilot was Jeannie Leavitt in 1993. That's not a coincidence: until then, women were banned from flying combat missions. https://web.archive.org/web/20140111222628/http://articles.philly.com/1993-05-20/living/25964911_1_fighter-pilot-jeannie-flynn-holloman-air-force-base https://web.archive.org/web/20140111222628/http://articles.p... So yes, requiring applicants to have fighter pilot experience in 1963 was exactly the same as denying women because of their gender.
zarathustreal 5y ago
The truth doesn’t make an interesting article, an appeal to injustice does. How did you manage to notice that the headline was false if you care about women? What sparked the idea of fact checking this article if you aren’t systemically sexist? How dare you

by TMWNN 5y ago

scubbo 5y ago

If "female" implies "not a [fighter/test] military pilot", and "not a [fighter/test] military pilot" implies "not eligible", then it is true to say that "female" implies "not eligible".

niggerfucker1 5y ago
You might be mentally retarded. :(
TMWNN 5y ago
>If "female" implies "not a [fighter/test] military pilot", and "not a [fighter/test] military pilot" implies "not eligible", then it is true to say that "female" implies "not eligible". My point is that the rules weren't put there to exclude women but to screen out the applicant pool to make easier identifying those that NASA thought would be the best candidates. By proactively choosing from active-duty military pilots, for example, the Mercury Seven evaluation board missed out on Neil Armstrong (a civilian). By screening for only those applicants with fighter pilot experience, the Group 2 evaluators would have missed out on Mercury Seven's Scott Carpenter, who flew multiengine planes. By excluding those with a minimum amount of flight hours, Group 3 missed out on Don Lind (physics PhD and Navy fighter vet who didn't meet the minimum). Etc., etc. Taken literally, "Mercury 13" would imply that twice as many qualified women astronauts existed in 1959 as men. That's in and of itself ridiculous. Most men who passed the physical tests the Mercury 7 and Mercury 13 passed weren't chosen to become astronauts, either.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  > My point is that the rules weren't put there to exclude women but to screen out the applicant pool to make easier identifying those that NASA thought would be the best candidates. What makes you think the test/fight pilot rules weren’t just a pretext?
  - readflaggedcomm 5y ago
    Maybe the skills just happened to overlap, like high-G maneuvers.
  - CheezeIt 5y ago
    Because obviously. If you’re starting a new program to send people to outer space and beat the Commies, what drives your decision making? Is it (a) getting the best people, who’ve already acquitted themselves under stressful conditions admirably (b) making some women happy (c) eliminating women under some pretext, just to mess with them

jedberg 5y ago

If you want to be really accurate, the women actually participated in a private test that replicated the NASA training program, so NASA had nothing to do with it. But the entire point of that private program was the show NASA "hey look women can do this too!". And that's kind of the point. That they were only being denied because of their gender.

jhfsergnvx 5y ago
You mean their sex, not their gender. Gender as a concept hadn't even been invented yet: > Sexologist John Money introduced the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a role in 1955. Before his work, it was uncommon to use the word gender to refer to anything but grammatical categories.[1][2] However, Money's meaning of the word did not become widespread until the 1970s, when feminist theory embraced the concept of a distinction between biological sex and the social construct of gender. From the Wikipedia page for gender
TMWNN 5y ago
>If you want to be really accurate, the women actually participated in a private test that replicated the NASA training program, so NASA had nothing to do with it. Correct, except the word "training". The Mercury 13 took physiological tests that replicated NASA evaluations of prospective astronaut candidates, nothing more. The Mercury 7 didn't go through a "training program" after selection; such didn't formally start until the shuttle era. >But the entire point of that private program was the show NASA "hey look women can do this too!". And that's kind of the point. >That they were only being denied because of their gender. My point is that the rules weren't put there to exclude women but to screen the applicant pool to make easier identifying those that NASA sincerely thought would be the best candidates. By proactively choosing from active-duty military pilots, for example, the Mercury Seven evaluation board missed out on Neil Armstrong (a civilian). By screening for only those applicants with fighter pilot experience, the Group 2 evaluators would have missed out on Mercury Seven's Scott Carpenter, who flew multiengine planes. By excluding those with a minimum amount of flight hours, Group 3 missed out on Don Lind (physics PhD and Navy fighter vet who didn't meet the minimum). Etc., etc. Let me repeat: Most men who passed the tests the Mercury 7 and Mercury 13 passed weren't chosen to become astronauts, either. Taken literally, "Mercury 13" would imply that twice as many qualified women astronauts existed in 1959 as men. That's in and of itself ridiculous. To say that the only thing keeping the Mercury 13 from flying into space was an arbitrary NASA decision, and nothing else, is simply not true.

jakelazaroff 5y ago

The first woman to become a US fighter pilot was Jeannie Leavitt in 1993. That's not a coincidence: until then, women were banned from flying combat missions. https://web.archive.org/web/20140111222628/http://articles.philly.com/1993-05-20/living/25964911_1_fighter-pilot-jeannie-flynn-holloman-air-force-base https://web.archive.org/web/20140111222628/http://articles.p... So yes, requiring applicants to have fighter pilot experience in 1963 was exactly the same as denying women because of their gender.

zarathustreal 5y ago

The truth doesn’t make an interesting article, an appeal to injustice does. How did you manage to notice that the headline was false if you care about women? What sparked the idea of fact checking this article if you aren’t systemically sexist? How dare you