The first American women trained to fly into space

Experiencing many tests under high pressure for a long time, but the first American women trained for the space mission still cannot touch their dreams.

>>>Portrait of world-famous female astronauts

Experts say that women will become ideal astronauts when they join the space mission, because they are small, light weight and eat less than men.Economically, weight in the cockpit will affect the cost of propellant engine fuel.Therefore, flights with female astronauts will be more cost-effective.

In 1958, physicist William Randolph Lovelace came up with the idea and conducted a test to select astronauts for the Mercury program (America's first spaceflight program).The selected group of 7 members, all male, was founded a year later.Also in 1958, Lovelace built a program to train and test female pilots.The US Aerospace Agency (NASA) does not fund this activity.

The first woman Lovelace chose was pilot Geraldyn Cobb (black, middle).In 1959 and 1960, she set up three flight records in the world.Cobb passed three stages of testing, similar to the tests that Mercury's astronaut completed earlier, proving that women can also fly into space.

Lovelace and Cobb then recruited 19 additional female pilots and applied similar tests.Each person must have at least 1,000 hours of flying experience.In the picture is Wally Funk, one of this program participants .

The tests were judged to be exhausting and sometimes "brutal".No one knows how the gravityless environment will affect the human body, so Lovealace tested everything he thought of.Female pilot Wally Funk recounted that the most painful test was to have ice in her ear for about 20 seconds, temporarily freezing the inner ear and causing dizziness.

Funk describes the eyes starting to shake with the rest of the body.Tests to determine the ability to control objects at a fast rate.

In this test, the female pilot was dropped in a bucket of water in a dark room.Time will last until they are uncomfortable, stuffy or begin to hallucinate.Funk is in this state in the water tank 10 hours 35 minutes, longer than any other person.She became one of the last 13 people to pass the test and qualified to fly into space.

Their group is called Mercury 13, with many female pilots even having higher test results than men.However, none of them could fulfill the dream, when US President Eisenhower at the time thought that astronauts were required to be military test pilots and women were not allowed to hold any position. location in the military at the time.

Cobb and the other members of the group decided to present this issue to the National Assembly.However, because their tests were carried out under a non-cooperative program with NASA, the requirement to bring female astronauts to space was not considered.Some people are hesitant because of concerns that this may be seen as a sign of US weakness.

In 1963, Russia brought the first woman to space.She is Valentina Tereshkova.

Meanwhile, NASA has allowed women to participate in astronaut training programs since 1978, selecting six women in a group of 35 new members.Sally Ride is one of them, becoming the first American woman to fly into space in 1983.

According to statistics in 2013, the number of women accounted for about 10% of the total number of astronauts ever flying into space.In the picture is Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly into space.