The Untold Story of NASA’s First Class of Female Astronauts

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Next, six extraordinary trailblazing women. Journalist Loren Grush explores the stories of America’s first female astronauts in her new book, “The Six.” And she joins Hari Sreenivasan to discussion the discrimination they faced and their important legacy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARI SREENIVASAN, INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Loren Grush, thanks so much for joining us. So, it’s 40 years now since Sally Ride became part of the first batch of astronauts selected. We, of course, remember her name because she was the first female astronaut. But you chose to write a book, “The Six”, on the kind of entire first class, if you will. First of all, why?

LOREN GRUSH, AUTHOR, “THE SIX”: Well, you kind of said it just there. I feel look most of the American public vividly remembers Sally Ride or at least knows the name. But maybe most don’t know that she was one of six women who came on board as the first class of women astronauts in 1978. And I was the same way. You know, I felt like — even as a space reporter, I knew Sally Ride, but I really didn’t have the full history of these other five women. But what I learned from studying them and researching them is that any one of the six of them could have been the first American woman to fly. So, I kind of loved that, you know, going — diving back and thinking what ifs, if it had just gone another way. And so, I found that really interesting. And I thought, you know, their stories are just as unique and exciting and worth sharing. So, I thought it would be a great way to, you know, shine a spotlight on this great group of individuals.

SREENIVASAN: Yes. And they were incredibly bright women, I think four PhDs, two MDs. I mean, these are — they’re accomplished in their lives already. What is it about the space program that made them curious and how did they hear about it or want to be an astronaut?

GRUSH: Well, some of them — you know, I think they’re great illustration of how there’s really no one true path to space. You know, some of them dreamed of being astronauts since they were little girls, some did not. You know, they were interested in science or their chosen fields, but then when they saw that NASA was advertising and actually bringing women into the program, that’s when they realized that, oh, I have the right credentials and I think this might be really something I’d love to do. So, they all found out about it in various ways because NASA was really keen at the time to make sure that women and people of color knew that they were opening up the astronaut selection to a wider array of individuals. And so, they all have their unique paths on getting to space, and I think that’s what makes them such a great group is because they are so different and interesting in how they got there.

SREENIVASAN: You know, what’s enlightening about your book is not just that you’re getting to this six, but there were quite a few women before them that had continued — began this fight for equality and continued until it got where they were allowed in.

GRUSH: Yes. So, the book does detail a kind of famous group of women, kind of known as the Mercury 13. It’s not the best name for them, but it’s a nod to the fact that they passed the same test that were given to the Mercury Seven astronauts, the first astronauts that came into the program, the male astronauts. And they very much wanted to keep training to go to space, but their training was cut short once NASA and the U.S. government really found out about it, because it wasn’t a NASA sanctioned program. And so, they lobbied Congress hard to make sure that they could keep training and to try and convince them that it was important to send a woman into space along with the men. But ultimately, at the time, you know, this was the 1960s and we were very much in a heated space race with the Soviets to get to the moon first. And so, NASA didn’t really see it as a priority to send a woman into space. It was really seen as more of a distraction. And so, ultimately, the Soviets did end up beating us by sending their first woman into space. And when that happened, you know, NASA and the U.S. just didn’t see — they kind of brushed it off as a publicity stunt.

SREENIVASAN: You know, there’s an interesting piece of testimony that you have from a house space committee in 1962, and we’re talking about John Glenn, the astronaut. He was testifying that women would just not be “an essential asset for the space program.” He said, “It gets back to the way our social order is organized.” I mean, that must have been an incredible blow to women listening, women in NASA, seeing an astronaut have this platform and choose to be this dismissive.

GRUSH: It really was. And I think it just kind of illustrates how strong the cultural biases of the time were. I mean, here we had a very famous NASA astronaut, you know, propping up this sexism, but I think it was pretty normal at the time for a lot of people to think that way, not just men but women as well. And so, you know, it just goes to show what these women were up against at the time and how difficult it was for them to fight back against a very strong patriarchy.

SREENIVASAN: Yes. So, tell me about how they navigated through this. What kinds of training did they have to go through?

GRUSH: Right. So, probably the most exciting part of the training is that they had to stay current in NASA’s suite of T-38 jets. So, for the women, they were not — some of them were pilots when they came onto the program, but they hadn’t flown jets before. And so, they were back seaters. So, while they would get to, you know, take control in the air of the plane, they couldn’t takeoff or land. However, I did speak to a few of their former colleagues who told me that they did let them take off and land, but only admitted that many years later. But the majority of their time was spent in the classroom, you know, learning the ins and outs of the new space shuttle, every subsystem, every component, any time — if anything broke or any system, you know, went wrong, they had to be able to fix it or to troubleshoot it. And then, also learning various scientific disciplines. So, the various payloads that they would deploy, you know, they would be studying the stars or looking back at earth. So, they would study geology and oceanography and astrophysics, which some of the women had already studied pretty extensively before they come onto the program. So, there was a lot of information just learning lots of things that they had to retain and recall at the drop of a dime.

SREENIVASAN: You have an anecdote in there about them going to Seattle, I think it was Boeing, and they are kind of introduced to the 747. Tell me about that.

GRUSH: Yes. So, this story is just great and it really shows just how quickly the women really took to the flying and the controls of an aircraft. So, while they were training, a group of the women, Judy Resnik, Anna Fisher and Sally Ride flew with three of their male astronaut colleagues up to Seattle to take — to visit Boeing, which was working on the 747 that would transport the space shuttle whenever it needed to move across the country. And when they were there, one of their Boeing chaperones asked if they wanted to see the plane and fly the plane, and they were thinking it would be the simulator. But he said, oh, no, let’s actually fly the 747. So, they get into the plane. And the Boeing representative asks the women, one of the women, if they’d like to take off and land, not knowing that they weren’t true pilots, you know, they had just joined the program and they didn’t have any experience flying, definitely not a 747. But he thought they were pilots. And so, they offered up, yes, sure, I’ll take it for a spin. And so, each three of the — the three of them would go on to take off and land. And then, at one-point, the representative asked Sally, hey, so how many other planes have you been checked out on? And she goes, oh, you know, none. I’m not actually a pilot. And he was — one of the other astronauts told me he turned ghost white when he heard that, realizing he had just let some novice pilots fly the plane. But he had no idea. They flew like pros.

SREENIVASAN: So, there was a report that was filed by a woman named Ruth Bates Harris. And most people won’t know that she was a black woman who was originally hired to run NASA’s kind of equal employment opportunity office. But she did publish this report about a state kind of diversity in NASA. What did she find?

GRUSH: So, she found that it was pretty dismal at the time. And this was before the six women came on board. This was in the early 1970s. And really, she and her co-workers did this report unprompted. They really just wanted to take a look at the state of the agency. And there’s a great quote in that report that really illustrates just how poorly NASA had tried to bring women and people of color into the program at that point. I don’t remember the exact quote off the top of my head but it was something along the lines of, you know, NASA had sent three women into space. Two spiders and one monkey. You know, it was — it just really painted a grim picture of diversity at the agency. And then, ultimately, after that report came out, she was fired and called a disruptive force. Now, NASA tried to backtrack and say, it wasn’t because of the report. But ultimately, that did shine a light on what she had found. And it was getting to the point where NASA really couldn’t hide from this problem anymore. They were getting a lot of questions internally and externally about why they hadn’t brought in women and people of color up to that point.

SREENIVASAN: Were these six women conscious on a sort of daily basis of the increased scrutiny that was on them and how the spotlight was on them? Because Sally Ride was selected, but it could have been any of them.

GRUSH: Absolutely. So, I think they very much knew how much of a microscope they were under when they were presented to the public for the very first time at NASA. You know, when they came on board, they were offered up for interviews, the entire class was offered up for interviews, and this was 35 people that the six women were part of. And the press only wanted to speak to the six women and the astronauts of color who had come on board. So, they knew how much scrutiny they were under. And I think a very poignant quote that Sally Ride gave when she first flew, before she flew to space, was that she — her biggest fear was that she was going to mess up. And I think a lot is loaded in that statement, which is that, you know, she knew that she would be representing not just herself, but all of women when she went to space for first time. And I think that’s true of anyone from an underrepresented group, is that you are standing for everyone else that’s like you. And so, she knew that if she messed up, the press were going to write headlines, you know, woman messes up in space, not Sally Ride messes up in space, but woman messes up in space. But fortunately, you know, they did such an amazing job and they really helped to pave the way for the women that came after them because they were so adept and capable of what — of their jobs.

SREENIVASAN: You end the book with the Challenger tragedy in 1986, and Judy Resnik was on that. Why did you think it was important to kind of bookend the book there?

GRUSH: Well, I think I wanted to give Judy a proper sendoff. And also, I think the Challenger accident really serves as an end of a chapter for this era of the space program. You know, during the early days of the shuttle, it really was a very celebratory time and there was also kind this idea that NASA could do nothing wrong. And so, as the shuttle kept launching, you know, we were adding on payload specialists, we were adding on politicians to flights. And then, obviously, we famously flew a teacher on the Challenger flight. And before that happened, we were about to fly a journalist. So, you know, it was a very different time before Challenger flew. And then, once it did fly, you know, the — everything changed. You know, the — NASA had to completely re-evaluate its safety procedures and its protocols, and it transformed the agency into its new era, a new era for the space shuttle. So, I really see the Challenge accident as the end of a chapter and the beginning of a new generation for the space program.

SREENIVASAN: You know, jumping kind of forward to today, there are efforts underway to launch a mission that would put the first woman on the moon. Besides the symbolic significance, what do you think NASA is hoping for with it?

GRUSH: Well, I think we’re trying to, you know, correct many decades of, you know, being behind in this area. And I think, you know, the Artemis program, which you’ve mentioned, is very unique and that it’s the first time that NASA has really made the stated goal of sending a woman and person of color to the lunar surface. I don’t think they’ve really made that statement for any other of their program. They never dictated who would — who they were going to fly. So, that’s a really interesting evolution in the space program. Some might agree with this, some might not, but it does go to show that this is top of mind for the space agency. And, you know, I think it’s interesting because we do have a bit of way to go in terms of reaching true parity. Less than one-sixth of the women — less than one-sixth of the people who’ve gone to space have been women. And women of color, the statistics are pretty abhorrent. You know, we have quite ways to go to catch up. And so, I think it’s really quite inspiring that NASA is making that a goal. And I think it’s also an important lesson that relates back to the six and the first woman who came on board. When the 1977 selection process happened, you know, the selection board made bringing people of color and women top of mind. They were very clear to when they advertised the program that they wanted a wider array of people to come on board. And because they made that a priority, it dictated how they advertised and who they advertised to. And that ultimately led to their success in bringing much more diverse crew of astronauts into the program. So, it just goes to show that when you make it a stated goal, it makes it much more easier that you will be successful.

SREENIVASAN: You know, in a way, your book is really kind of looking at also the infrastructure of what produced these women in the first place, and kind of the ripple effects of not just their presence, but what happens in academic, in private and public companies, are there enough mentors who are women who can support another generation of young women to become astronauts and even much more.

GRUSH: Yes. I would say one of the biggest things that the six were able to do for NASA is to simply pave the way for more women to come after them. You know, they didn’t have mentors that astronauts now have, you know. But ever since the six came on board, you know, they experienced what it was like to get pregnant while an astronaut. And so, they were able to share their experiences with other women who came on and then, also wanted to get pregnant. So, that’s ultimately what pioneers help with. They can — they make the roads slightly easier for the ones who come after them. And I know, speaking with some of the astronauts today, that they’re incredibly grateful for that because they are able to have that history of women behind them so that they have all these experiences and they have all that support for any of the problems that they might when they’re in the field.

SREENIVASAN: What is writing this book mean to you? I mean, you’re the daughter of parents who worked at NASA. Why was it important for you to tackle this topic? You cover space every day. You have for years and years. Why this beat?

GRUSH: Well, I have been covering space now for nearly 10 years. And, you know, centering women’s voices is just something that’s been very important to me. I’ve always wanted to write a book but, you know, I have — I wanted — I noticed that a lot of the books about space nowadays do center men. And you know, it just — it’s illustrative of the fact it’s still quite a male dominated industry. And so, it was really important to me to find a story that centered women in space because it’s been very important to me as a space reporter to find the other women around me. You know, even space reporting is a pretty male dominated field. But as I progressed in this industry, I found more and more amazing women who report on space as well and find — having that comradery with them has been one of the most, you know, valuable things in my life. And I imagine for other women in this industry, it’s also valuable knowing about the women who came before them and paved that way. Knowing it’s valuable for me and it’s inspiring for me too. And so, that’s ultimately what I hope this gives to everyone who’s, you know, realizing that they’re not alone and that there’s others just like them.

SREENIVASAN: The book is called “The Six.” Author Loren Grush, thanks so much for joining us.

GRUSH: Thanks so much for having me.