Posted on 04/01/2005 10:06:06 AM PST by BenLurkin
You might not know her name, but you should. She beat out John Glenn in physical and mental readiness for space in the Mercury program, in fact. And how could you forget a name like Wally Funk?
Despite the fact that our nation is fresh on the heels of women's history month, is it any surprise that we don't know the names and accomplishments of some of the most interesting women in history, despite the depth or, in Wally Funk's case, the height of their achievements?
They should be household names - The Mercury 13. That's right, 13.
In 1961, 13 women aviators were sworn to secrecy and covertly tested for entry into NASA's space program by the Lovelace clinic in New Mexico. But later that year, the program was abruptly canceled by NASA with nothing more than apologetic telegrams - reportedly due to musings among government officials and male astronauts that women were not fit for the intellectual demands of space travel.
The program and the women's names were lost to history due to NASA's secrecy, dismissed by the administration as nothing more than the pet project of William Lovelace, too risky to sanction. And in what was brushed aside by the American program as a mere stunt, Russia beat out the United States with another space race record by sending Valentina Tereshkova to space in 1963.
Years after the United States had successfully tested a ready and able group of women to accomplish the same task, Tereshkova took the Mercury 13's dreams of space with her.
But one of those women just might still get there.
Wally Funk, the youngest member of the Mercury 13, has been invited to fly on an inaugural launch for Interorbital Systems, an X Prize competitor still in progress developing a commercial orbiter. Based at the Mojave Civilian Flight Test Center, Interorbital's project is the Solaris X, which they hope will finish testing and begin "five- to seven-day" commercial flights as early as 2007.
Co-founder and Interorbital CEO Randa Milliron, in charge of hardware testing and also a teacher, knows a thing or two about a woman in a man's business, saying "(Funk) had the ability to be the first woman in space, and was denied that by gender bias. It would be great to fly someone with that kind of history."
Funk's adventures, and those of all the Mercury women, read like they've come straight from the movies. "I always knew I wanted to fly," she says of growing up in Taos, N.M., inspired by repeated trips to a local airport with her mother, to "see how to put my model airplanes together."
She attributes her adventurous nature and aeronautical success to her supportive, outdoorsy family and a freewheeling upbringing, crediting the educational figures in her past as instrumental in her success. She was encouraged at every level, from college advisors to flight instructors, and even by a friend's dad - none of whom thought twice about her sex, when they supported what may have been unconventional choices for a young woman at the time.
Yet the path of a female pilots was far from easy at the time - Funk was turned down for pilot's positions by several commercial airlines, on the excuse that they couldn't provide women's restrooms. Despite the odds, she became an FAA inspector in 1971, serving under John Glenn, who had testified against the Mercury 13 in Senate hearings on the abilities of women as astronauts. Funk says she still keeps in touch with his family, claiming he was nothing but "totally supportive" of her work in the FAA, which led to her position as the first female air safety investigator for the NTSB.
When she met some of the Mercury 7 at a book signing, Funk says they were apologetic about the largely controversial program, explaining, "they said, 'we're so sorry that we didn't understand about you girls.' They were sorry it happened the way it did."
Her tumultuous journey with the space program began in 1961, when upon the discovery that the Russians were testing women cosmonauts, NASA raced to put the American program on par by testing the obvious advantages of female candidates: they weigh less and consume less food, water and air - all saving precious total payload weight.
What Lovelace didn't expect, however, was that the 13 - Jerrie Cobb, Myrtle Cagle, twins Jan and Marion Dietrich, Wally Funk, Janey Hart, Jean Hixson, Gene Nora Jessen, Irene Leverton, Sarah Ratley, Bernice Steadman, Jerri Truhill and Rhea Woltman - would not only match the physical and psychological results of the Mercury 7 astronauts, but that in many tests they often did better.
Only 21 years old, Funk withstood five times the force of Earth's gravity in the Martin-Baker centrifuge, without losing consciousness - something many astronauts are unable to take. A woman's touch may have given her a slight
advantage though - when not
provided with a pressure suit, she says she borrowed a merry-widow corset from her mother for the test, "I kind of masterminded my own G-suit."
Funk also floated in a sensory deprivation tank for over 10 hours, where the Mercury 7 were only tested for up to three.
"I didn't hallucinate once," she says, though she admits she may have napped a bit.
Only Funk and pilot Jerrie Cobb were able to pass Lovelace's final testing battery before the program was shut down. The rest of the 13 remained untested in the final stages.
Recently published, "The Mercury 13" by Martha Ackmann unearths the story of how, when asked by the Naval Aviation Center in Florida for formal approval of testing procedures on the 13, NASA made the program defunct by introducing new requirements for candidates - that they possess engineering degrees and jet experience.
The new protocol, left as an advisement only, by outgoing President Eisenhower, obviously precluded women - as they were prevented from military advancement at the time, and thus, jet experience. But even though all of the Mercury 13 were civilians, as compared to the military test pilots in the Mercury 7, many of them had in fact flown as service military pilots (World War II WASPs), or had in other government projects.
Campaigns by the 13 to President Kennedy and in senate subcommittee hearings went unheard however, and women would not be allowed to train as military test pilots until a decade later. Yet, of the decision that has outraged many of the 13 to this day, Funk says she doesn't hold any grudge.
"NASA doesn't owe us a thing - I never expected anything," she explains, recalling her youthful innocence of the politics of the program. But when a 77-year-old John Glenn was afforded yet another spot on a space mission in 1998, many of those politics, and Mercury 13 members, re-emerged - demanding space flight consideration themselves.
Commercial orbiters may be the last best hope of these skilled and
storied pilots, who hang their hopes on the ability of advancing technology to smash the last barriers to their legacy, and their dream of space.
It would be 36 years from
the first woman's flight until Col. Eileen Collins could become the first female commander of a U.S. space mission in 1999. Collins will also command the first shuttle launch since the Columbia tragedy, no earlier than May 15, which Funk says she will attend, "yelling my head off."
When she served as the first female pilot of a shuttle mission in 1995, Collins personally invited the surviving members of the Mercury 13 to attend the launch - the women, meeting as a group for the first time, were seen to cry tears of joy and shout their support as Collins lofted away.
"She took my heart up there with her," Funk says.
Funk has continued to build her "resume" of space training, pulling strings wherever she can to participate in space flight simulation and zero-gravity conditions, and has been asked by several private companies to participate in possible future space launches.
"I'll go into space with whoever gets me there," she says.
A space oddity?
Or April Fools?
We report, you decide . . .
One reason for female astronaut recruitment was that women required slightly less life support hardware, and that saved weight on the pad -- important when boosters weren't too peppy. After it was demonstrated that the boosters would do the job, it wasn't considered necessary.
Besides, there wasn't any place to put the potpourri. [ducks, runs]
Sent her a link to the original site. She was thrilled to see her old friend resurface in the news. (Would have sent her here, but the level of sarcasm overwhelms sometimes.)
Thanks for posting. You made someone very happy today.
OK the key points are:1)Males are sexist pigs. 2)Wally was a victim.3)Women actually make better astronauts.
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