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And barely over a year later, Valentina Tereshkova kicks NASA in the teeth. Wonder how Mr. Lloyd felt when that happened. > Original Mercury astronaut Deke Sla

by eksith 13y ago

And barely over a year later, Valentina Tereshkova kicks NASA in the teeth. Wonder how Mr. Lloyd felt when that happened. > Original Mercury astronaut Deke Slayton wrote in 1970 to future NASA astronaut Marsha Ivins, ‘The exact time when we would seriously consider women is indefinite, but I am sure it is inevitable.’” NASA was most definitely a boys club back in the day. I mean, you can see the old footage of the guys dealing with the Apollo 13 mess ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxOKVHhFVJU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxOKVHhFVJU whoever chose the music for that should have been fired ) you can see just how much testosterone was in the air... along with the cigarette smoke. It's a strange dichotomy that the "Free world" was less free to women at the time than a Communist country.

ars 13y ago
> Wonder how Mr. Lloyd felt when that happened. Why do you assume this was his policy? There weren't a whole lot of women in engineering at that time. It took a while after WW2 for women to go into science. Do you have a specific timestamp in mind for the video? Or just in general looking at the launch crew?
- eksith 13y ago
  "Houston, We've got a problem" is form 1972 : http://archive.org/details/HoustonWeveGotAProblem http://archive.org/details/HoustonWeveGotAProblem I don't claim Mr. Lloyed initiated the policy, but by the matter-of-fact tone of the letter itself, I can infer he agreed that NASA certainly had no use for women astronauts at the time, despite their presence in the sciences and engineering (I believe Playtex/ILC Dover were hired to do the Apollo spacesuits and there were a fair number of women involved).
  - ars 13y ago
    > but by the matter-of-fact tone of the letter itself, I can infer he agreed that NASA certainly had no use for women astronauts at the time I can't. All I see is someone following the current policy and not being mean about it. Plus astronauts were taken from the military, and women were not accepted as combat pilots in the military still 1976, so NASA didn't have a choice in the matter even if they had wanted to accept women.
dvt 13y ago
I think you are confused. Valentina Tereshkova was selected by the USSR not for any noble reason, but for the equally sexist-reasons "Miss Kelly" was denied -- because she was a woman. If you think the USSR was less sexist than the USA in the 50s and 60s, you are vastly mistaken.
- eksith 13y ago
  How about we ask a former communist? http://lunardefensecorps.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-ussr-womens-rights-and-feminism.html http://lunardefensecorps.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-ussr-women...
  - dvt 13y ago
    I'd prefer to read some scholarly articles/books on the topic (most of which agree with my claim): From: Sisterhood and Socialism: The Soviet Feminist Movement Rochelle Ruthchild Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies , Vol. 7, No. 2 (1983), pp. 4-12 For the Club Maria, the "tragedy of women" is the reeminent example of the moral crisis of Soviet communism, the hypocrisy, the abandonment of spiritual values. For Mamonova, the Soviet system, despite its great promise, has become simply the same old sexist wolf in socialist clothing. Soviet Sisterhood, a relatively wide-spread book by Barbara Holland, was even more critical of what feminists call the "patriarchy."

by eksith 13y ago

ars 13y ago

> Wonder how Mr. Lloyd felt when that happened. Why do you assume this was his policy? There weren't a whole lot of women in engineering at that time. It took a while after WW2 for women to go into science. Do you have a specific timestamp in mind for the video? Or just in general looking at the launch crew?

eksith 13y ago
"Houston, We've got a problem" is form 1972 : http://archive.org/details/HoustonWeveGotAProblem http://archive.org/details/HoustonWeveGotAProblem I don't claim Mr. Lloyed initiated the policy, but by the matter-of-fact tone of the letter itself, I can infer he agreed that NASA certainly had no use for women astronauts at the time, despite their presence in the sciences and engineering (I believe Playtex/ILC Dover were hired to do the Apollo spacesuits and there were a fair number of women involved).
- ars 13y ago
  > but by the matter-of-fact tone of the letter itself, I can infer he agreed that NASA certainly had no use for women astronauts at the time I can't. All I see is someone following the current policy and not being mean about it. Plus astronauts were taken from the military, and women were not accepted as combat pilots in the military still 1976, so NASA didn't have a choice in the matter even if they had wanted to accept women.

dvt 13y ago

I think you are confused. Valentina Tereshkova was selected by the USSR not for any noble reason, but for the equally sexist-reasons "Miss Kelly" was denied -- because she was a woman. If you think the USSR was less sexist than the USA in the 50s and 60s, you are vastly mistaken.

eksith 13y ago
How about we ask a former communist? http://lunardefensecorps.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-ussr-womens-rights-and-feminism.html http://lunardefensecorps.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-ussr-women...
- dvt 13y ago
  I'd prefer to read some scholarly articles/books on the topic (most of which agree with my claim): From: Sisterhood and Socialism: The Soviet Feminist Movement Rochelle Ruthchild Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies , Vol. 7, No. 2 (1983), pp. 4-12 For the Club Maria, the "tragedy of women" is the reeminent example of the moral crisis of Soviet communism, the hypocrisy, the abandonment of spiritual values. For Mamonova, the Soviet system, despite its great promise, has become simply the same old sexist wolf in socialist clothing. Soviet Sisterhood, a relatively wide-spread book by Barbara Holland, was even more critical of what feminists call the "patriarchy."