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The Mercury 13 were thirteen American women who took part in a privately funded research program run by NASA physician William Randolph Lovelace II in 1959-1960, which aimed to test and screen women for spaceflight. The first participant, pilot Geraldyn "Jerrie" Cobb helped Lovelace identify and recruit the others. The participants successfully underwent the same physiological screening tests as had the astronauts selected by NASA for Project Mercury. While Lovelace called the project Woman in Space Program, the thirteen women decades later became known as the "Mercury 13"— a term coined in 1995 as a comparison to the Mercury Seven astronauts. The Mercury 13 women were not allowed in NASA's official astronaut program, and at the time, never trained as a group, nor flew in space. In the 1960s, some of these women were among those who lobbied the White House and US Congress to have women included in the astronaut program. They testified before a congressional committee in 1962. In 1963, Clare Boothe Luce wrote an article for LIFE magazine publicizing the women and criticizing NASA for its failure to include women as astronauts. One of the thirteen, Wally Funk, was launched into space in a suborbital flight aboard Blue Origin's July 20, 2021 New Shepard 4 mission Flight 16, making her the (then) oldest person to go into space at age 82. The story of these women has been retold in books, exhibits, and movies, including the 2018 Netflix-produced documentary Mercury 13. History When NASA first planned to put people in space, they believed that the best candidates would be pilots, submarine crews or members of expeditions to the Antarctic or Arctic areas. They also thought people with more extreme sports backgrounds, such as parachuting, climbing, deep sea diving, etc. would excel in the program. NASA knew that numerous people would apply for this opportunity and testing would be expensive. President Dwight Eisenhower believed that military test pilots would make the best astronauts and had already passed rigorous testing and training within the government. This greatly altered the testing requirements and shifted the history of who was chosen to go to space originally. William Randolph Lovelace II, former Flight Surgeon and later, chairman of the NASA Special Advisory Committee on Life Science, helped develop the tests for NASA's male astronauts and became curious to know how women would do taking the same tests. In 1960, Lovelace and Air Force Brig. General Don Flickinger invited Geraldyn "Jerrie" Cobb, known as an accomplished pilot, to undergo the same rigorous challenges as the men. Lovelace became interested in beginning this program because he was a medical doctor who had done the NASA physical testing for the official program. He was able to fund the unofficial program, the Woman in Space program, and invited up to 25 women to come and take the physical tests. Lovelace was interested in the way that women's bodies would react to being in space. The program was hidden from the public eye; the Mercury 13 were not reported in any major publications. However, they were not entirely unknown. Cobb was the first American woman (and the only one of the Mercury 13) to undergo and pass all three phases of testing. Lovelace and Cobb recruited 19 more women to take the tests, financed by the husband of world-renowned aviator Jacqueline Cochran. Thirteen of the women passed the same tests as the Mercury 7. Some were disqualified due to brain or heart anomalies. The results were announced at the second International Symposium on Submarine and Space Medicine in Stockholm, Sweden on August 18, 1960. Candidate background All of the candidates were accomplished pilots; Lovelace and Cobb reviewed the records of more than 700 women pilots in order to select candidates. They did not invite anyone with fewer than 1,000 hours of flight experience.: 207  Some of the women may have been recruited through the Ninety-Nines, a women pilot's organization of which Cobb was also a member.: 222  Some women responded after hearing about the opportunity through friends. This group of women, whom Jerrie Cobb called the First Lady Astronaut Trainees (FLATs), accepted the challenge to be tested for a research program.: 250–251  Wally Funk wrote an article saying that, given the secrecy of the testing, not all of the women candidates knew each other throughout their years of preparation. It was not until 1994 that ten of the Mercury 13 were introduced to each other for the first time. Phase I tests Nineteen women took astronaut fitness examinations given by the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Unlike NASA's male candidates, who competed in groups, the women did their tests alone or in pairs. Because doctors did not know all the conditions which astronauts might encounter in space, they had to guess what tests might be required. These ranged from typical X-rays and general body physicals to the atypical; for instance, the women had to swallow a rubber tube in order to test the level of their stomach acids. Doctors tested the reflexes in the ulnar nerve of the woman's forearms by using electric shock. To induce vertigo, ice water was shot into their ears, freezing the inner ear so doctors could time how quickly they recovered. The women were pushed to exhaustion while riding specially weighted stationary bicycles, in order to test their respiration. They subjected themselves to many more invasive and uncomfortable tests. The 13 In the end, thirteen women passed the same Phase I physical examinations that the Lovelace Foundation had developed as part of NASA's astronaut selection process. Those thirteen women were: Myrtle Cagle (1925 – 2019) Jerrie Cobb (1931 – 2019) Janet Dietrich (1926 – 2008) Marion Dietrich (1926 – 1974) Wally Funk (born 1939) Sarah Gorelick (later Ratley) (1933 – 2020) Jane "Janey" Briggs Hart (1921 – 2015) Jean Hixson (1922 – 1984) Rhea Woltman (1928 – 2021) Gene Nora Stumbough (later Jessen) (born 1937) Irene Leverton (1927 – 2017) Jerri Sloan (later Truhill) (1929 – 2013) Bernice Steadman (1925 – 2015) At 41, Jane Hart was the oldest candidate, and was the mother of eight. Wally Funk was the youngest, at 23. Marion and Janet Dietrich were twin sisters. Additional tests and termination of the program A few women took additional tests. Jerrie Cobb, Rhea Hurrle, and Wally Funk went to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma for Phase II testing, consisting of an isolation tank test and psychological evaluations. Because of other family and job commitments, not all of the women were able to take these tests. Once Cobb had passed the Phase III tests (advanced aeromedical examinations using military equipment and jet aircraft), the group prepared to gather in Pensacola, Florida at the Naval School of Aviation Medicine to follow suit. Two of the women quit their jobs in order to be able to attend. A few days before they were to report, however, the women received telegrams abr.... Discover the Sue Mercury Sue Lyndon popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Sue Mercury Sue Lyndon books.