Women In The Cold War Essay

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a race to who would reach space first. While the United States is often thought of as the best in many ways, the Soviet Union was able to get to space first with Sputnik. This was scary for the United States because the Soviet Union was able to send people and missiles into the air and the United States could not do that same. There was an urgency for the United States space program.

Up until this point, women had only played “supporting roles” with the space program such as computresses, which was the female version of an engineer, secretaries, and wives. People were starting to figure out there could be benefits to having women actually participate in the NASA program. They thought

that women would cut the costs because women weigh less, use less oxygen, and eat least than men. There was some uneasiness about allowing women in space because the Soviet Union had already made it and it was as though allowing women in the space program would be a sign of weakness for the United States. Sending women into space was compared to being the same as sending a chimp into space. The argument was that it would not seem like such a great achievement for the United States if it was a woman in space and not a man.

Dr. Lovelace had created many, many tests for the men that were training for space. No one knew what would have when a person went into space so the tests covered everything.

So while men were going through the physical tests, Dr.

Lovelace secretly had women going through the same testing. Women pilots were not allowed in the military, so Dr. Lovelace had to women who were eligible. The findings from the testings done were that women did better and were able to tolerate the tests. Dr. Lovelace wanted to continue testing but NASA would not support this. Jerrie Cobb and Janie Hart took this case to congress because they found that it was discriminatory to not allow any women in the program. President Eisenhower made the decision that only jet test pilots could be astronauts. Women were not allowed to be jet test pilots so they were automatically ineligible. Women battled this for many years. Lyndon B. Johnson did not help the situation the women were in because he thought the advancement of the space program was more important than helping women get into the space program.

When Apollo 8 was going up, Poppy Northcutt was a vital part of the return back to Earth. She was the first women to be in that position and so involved with the mission. She had to work harder than the men to be where she was and it ended up benefiting her because knew the programs better than the men she worked

with.

During the Civil Rights and Women’s movements, NASA had a lot of political pressure to reach out to African Americans and women. There were also technological improvements which resulted in larger shuttles. This meant that NASA needed more people and they did not have to be jet test pilots. In order to get the African American community excited and involved in what the United States was doing, they used Michelle Nichols, an African-American actress. She played a vital role in being the public face of NASA from her role in Star Trek.

The astronaut class of 1978 class had 35 new members, 6 whom were women, but none were of color. The media was very interested in Fisher, Lucid, Sullivan, Resnik, Ride, and Seddon for many ways that seemed inappropriate. Instead of focusing of these women’s role in NASA, the media looked into their personal lives. Lucid was the only women already with a family and medias biggest question was how she would juggle this job and her family. There was a large divide between the men and women, partly because the men did not know how to behave the girls and partly because the engineers made a lot of big deals about the adjustments they would have to make for women for them to be able to use the restroom and menstruate.

Sally Ride was selected to be the first women in space in 1982. She had a lot of pressure because if she did anything wrong people would believe it was because she was a women and that women could not handle space. In 1984, Kathryn Sullivan became the first women to walk in space. That same year, MASA opened space to all. Christa McAuliffe was a teacher who was selected to be an astronaut. Being a teacher, Christa wanted to inspire the United States. Unfortunately, after multiple delays and the Challenger finally launching but was unsuccessful. This proved that men and women were equal in that they could both go to space and both die in space.

Next comes, Mae Jemison, the first African American women astronaut. She proved that anyone could go to space and everyone has the right to go to space. Ellen Collins became the first women pilot astronaut in 1995. In 1995, Collins also became the first woman commander.

Unfortunately, the space programs have delicate since the 1980s. Currently, the Orion Program is what NASA is focusing on. The hopes are to go to Mars. Marlene Martinez is a hispanic women who works on the Orion Program. She hopes that because of how involved she is in the creation that she will be picked to be an astronaut for it.