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mahatmakanejeeves

(56,888 posts)
Mon Apr 29, 2019, 01:00 PM Apr 2019

Jerrie Cobb, decorated pilot once in line to become first female astronaut, dies at 88

Obituaries
Jerrie Cobb, decorated pilot once in line to become first female astronaut, dies at 88



Aviator Jerrie Cobb was considered America’s first female astronaut candidate. (William P. Straeter/AP)

By Harrison Smith
April 22

By all metrics, there was no doubt that Jerrie Cobb had the right stuff, that luminous combination of talent, experience, bravery and composure that distinguishes an astronaut from an earthbound pilot. ... Undergoing the same battery of tests as NASA’s original Mercury Seven astronauts, she sat in an Albuquerque lab in early 1960 as cold water was shot into her ears to induce vertigo. Then she swallowed three feet of rubber hose for a stomach exam and downed a pint of radioactive fluid so scientists could study her metabolism.

Ms. Cobb spent a record-setting nine hours inside an isolation chamber, a dark and silent tank of water heated to match her body temperature. And for 45 minutes, she piloted a machine known as the gimbal rig, a gyroscopic, vomit-inducing spaceflight simulator that spun her on three axes at once. ... The tests were conducted privately and not officially approved by NASA. But when it was announced in August that she had passed all the tests used to qualify the Mercury Seven for space flight, she was widely considered the leading contender to become America’s first female astronaut

Dubbed an “astronautrix” and “astronette” by publications such as Life magazine, which noted the size of her bust alongside the breadth of her aviation résumé, she lobbied for NASA to launch women into space, testifying at a 1962 congressional hearing and meeting with Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. ... But Ms. Cobb, who was 88 when she died March 18 in Florida, never got the chance to step inside a space capsule and hurtle into orbit. Her efforts, and those of a dozen other women who were later nicknamed the Mercury 13, were spurned by NASA and dismissed by male peers including John Glenn.



Ms. Cobb operates the Multi-Axis Space Test Inertia Facility, known as the gimbal rig. (NASA/AP)

So Ms. Cobb, a trailblazing female pilot who had spent much of her life battling those who said no woman was fit to fly, decamped to the Amazon, where for more than five decades she flew humanitarian missions to remote tribes. ... Delivering seeds, foods, medicine and clothing, she was deep in the jungle on July 20, 1969, when she learned by radio that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had landed on the moon. Ms. Cobb celebrated by dancing in the moonlight on her grounded plane, prancing from one wing tip to the other.
....

In addition to Ms. Cobb, twelve more {female pilots took the tests and} passed with “no medical reservations,” forming a cohort that Ms. Cobb described as the First Lady Astronaut Trainees, or FLATs. But the program was disbanded in late summer 1961, after a Navy aviation school in Pensacola, Fla., barred Lovelace from using its spaceflight testing facilities without official permission from NASA.
....



A 1995 photo of surviving FLATs members, including Gene Nora Jessen, Wally Funk, Ms. Cobb, Jerri Truhill, Sarah Rutley, Myrtle Cagle and Bernice Steadman. (AP)

Harrison Smith is a reporter on The Washington Post's obituaries desk. Since joining the obituaries section in 2015, he has profiled big-game hunters, fallen dictators and Olympic champions. He sometimes covers the living as well, and previously co-founded the South Side Weekly, a community newspaper in Chicago. Follow https://twitter.com/harrisondsmith
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Jerrie Cobb, decorated pilot once in line to become first female astronaut, dies at 88 (Original Post) mahatmakanejeeves Apr 2019 OP
When she crossed over, a crowd was gathered to applaud a life well lived.❤ Karadeniz Apr 2019 #1
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