mzaharis
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 27, 2004
- Posts
- 541
TurboS7 said:It is God's judgement on the program because NASA wouldn't let the first qualified women astronaut go into space-Jerrie Cobb. Then when they had the chance to send her as a senior astronaut they chose John Glenn. What goes around comes around.BTW Jerrie rated higher on all the astronaut tests than any of the men.
Yeah, it's God's will to kill 14 men and women in flight (if you're counting both Challenger and Columbia in this retribution) for payback on a sex discrimination issue. I hope to God that I've fallen victim of some flamebait, and you aren't really that misguided.
Anyway, it DID make sense to have pilots who had considerable experience flying high speed military aircraft, particulary test pilots, as the first astronauts. That may not have been the true reason in the NASA managers' minds, but there was some logic to it. That requirement alone would have excluded all women at the time, as none had military/test flight experience in any great capacity (other than the odd dual instruction/record flight, like Jackie Cochran and Jerrie Cobb). Note that the only civilian males who flew prior to Harrison Schmitt on Apollo 17 were NASA test pilots with considerable high speed military and X-aircraft experience, such as Neil Armstrong, who flew the X-15 and the F9F-2 Panther.