Good afternoon everyone,

I am watching "For All Mankind", the alternate history of the space race. It's basically Mad Men in space, so obviously I am enjoying it enormously. It also means I am looking into the "Mercury 13" program, the widely used but "ahistorical and innacurate" term for the private women in space program run by William Randolph Lovelace II.

One episode in particular was a tribute to Jerrie Cobb. I love this photo of her in front of a House subcommittee with her shoes off under her desk, like every woman who is wearing heels and has her feet under a desk:

Cobb’s persistent lobbying inspired the House subcommittee hearings that investigated whether NASA was discriminating on the basis of sex. Two years before sex discrimination became illegal, subcommittee hearings of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics showed how ideas about women’s rights permeated political discourse even before they were enshrined in law.

https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/remembering-geraldyn-jerrie-cobb-pioneering-woman-aviator

This is super cool - here's an interview with Jessica Watkins, who recently spent 6 months on ISS, talking about how she was inspired to be an astronaut:

I certainly came into geology excited about the idea of studying the geology of other planets. I first kind of expressed some interest in being an astronaut when I attended an after-school enrichment program at the Sally Ride Elementary School. And so I had kind of asked my parents about who she was and what her story was. And I think that was the first time that I realized that you could actually do this as a career.

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/31/1076895893/astronaut-watkins-will-be-first-black-woman-to-spend-6-months-in-space

Now I am reading about Sally Ride and SHE'S cool as well, plus her sister is a Presbyterian minister called Bear. Here's a photo of them together, just looking so happy in their work. I think this is one of the loveliest pictures I have seen:

So, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the two Ride sisters were making names for themselves—though in different ways. Sally was becoming the first American woman to venture to space, and Bear was joining the fight within the Presbyterian church for ordination and marriage rights for the gay community. Where Sally was quiet and private, Bear was participatory and vocal.

https://history.pcusa.org/blog/2023/06/pride-ride-sisters-sally-and-bear

Love,

Alex.