The Mercury 13 by Martha Ackmann

Author:Martha Ackmann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781588360373
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2003-06-03T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Changing Course

OVERNIGHT THE QUESTION CHANGED. AFTER THE NAVY CANCELED phase three tests at Pensacola, Jerrie Cobb and the Mercury 13 no longer were fighting to prove females capable of spaceflight. They now had to convince NASA that women had a right to be astronauts. A medical and scientific question suddenly became a political one. With this change in question, a change in strategy and battleground developed. Cobb and Randy Lovelace, who had worked so closely together in screening the women candidates and overseeing their Albuquerque testing, began to operate more and more independently of each other. Lovelace opted for a more diplomatic tone and measured pace in trying to change NASA’s mind. Cobb, however, was fueled with indignation and disappointment and all but charged up the steps of Capitol Hill. What Jackie Cochran would do was anyone’s guess.

Cobb moved quickly upon hearing the word from Pensacola. She flew to Washington, found a cheap hotel, and started meeting with anyone who would see her. Cobb talked to the military and to politicians on Capitol Hill, and had a conversation with NASA’s James Webb, whom she described as sympathetic to the women’s cause but unwilling to commit himself.1 No one had a satisfactory answer. Cobb failed to discover why the Navy had approved her testing but balked when twelve more women wanted to go through the same exams. Nor could she ascertain why Washington was so unenthusiastic about sending an American woman into space when Russia was already bragging about a future female cosmonaut. All Cobb could determine was that NASA did not have a “requirement” for women in space. Even the word “requirement” seemed to imply that unless “required,” women were dismissed.

Randy Lovelace realized that it had been a mistake to keep James Webb and NASA uninformed about his women-in-space project. He wrote Webb a detailed letter outlining the project over the past year and politely recommending that the remaining Pensacola tests be allowed to go forward. The letter was a skillful dance and revealed Lovelace’s considerable talent for persuasion. He never questioned if women should be astronauts, he only asked when it would happen. While he hoped that his program would go forward, Lovelace was keenly aware that his foundation depended on NASA contracts, and he certainly wanted to keep federal space projects coming to Albuquerque. The letter tried to ameliorate any irritation NASA felt for his stirring up curiosity in women astronauts while also attempting to convert Webb’s annoyance into interest. Nearly everyone who ever worked with Lovelace knew he possessed a gift for generating excitement in others. He had been a powerful catalyst for innovative ideas in the past. He hoped he could spark James Webb’s imagination as well.

In defining the purpose of his experiment, Lovelace noted that it was not the project’s intent to put a woman into space “at an early date” but rather to amass scientific data on women in order to determine how they might be best used in the future. “All these

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