Mercury 13
The Mercury 13 were thirteen American women who took part in a privately funded program run by William Randolph Lovelace II aiming to test and screen women for spaceflight. The participants—First Lady Astronaut Trainees (or FLATs) as Jerrie Cobb called them—successfully underwent the same physiological screening tests as had the astronauts selected by NASA on April 9, 1959, for Project Mercury. While Lovelace called the project Woman in Space Program, the thirteen women became later known as the Mercury 13—a term coined in 1995 by Hollywood producer James Cross as a comparison to the Mercury Seven astronauts. The Mercury 13 women were not part of NASA's official astronaut program, never flew in space as part of a NASA mission, and never met as a whole group. In the 1960s some of these women were among those who lobbied the White House and US Congress to have women included in the astronaut program. They testified before a congressional committee in 1962. In 1963, Clare Bo ...
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