The Mercury 13 – Women Pilots Aiming for the Stars
Since March is Women’s History Month, I thought I would write this blog post about some courageous women pilots who have been largely forgotten by time and are not widely recognized today. I am referring to the history of the First Lady Astronaut Trainees, more commonly known as the Mercury 13. This group of women were secretly evaluated to see if they might be suitable astronaut candidates for America’s first human spaceflight program in the early 1960s. The thirteen women pilots, eager to participate in the space race against the Soviet Union, were subjected to the same rigorous tests that...