Provider. Amy is with us today courtesy of the aerospace corporation. Amy is a spaceflight historian. Author, youtube or, public speaker, and popular space personality. Not unlike her subjects she is one of the only academically trained young female spaceflight historians writing for a general audience. She runs the beloved log of vintage space hosted by Discover Magazine and to a Youtube Channel with over 3,125,000 subscribers. Shes a regular writer for discovery seeker and has hosted numerous space and science related shows. Among them, nasas unexplained files. She gives talks about spaceflight all over the u. S. And america. Please give a warm welcome to amy title. Bring it down to short level. Thank you for coming to listen to me talk first thing in the morning. Its weird about hearing your bio read like that. Ill try to live up to everything with just i want to start with the brief audience participation about who hasnt heard about mercury 13. Theres like a decent number of hands, maybe 15 or 20, or sometimes called the flex the first lady astronaut training. Sorry. Theres no way to print my talk some good to read this off my phone. If you dont know the story of the socalled mercury 13 ill explain the air quotes later. Basically its a story of everything 13 women who train her fate spaceflight in the 1960s and took on nasa with the goal of writing the wrong of sexism. Nasa does not allow women to be Astronaut Corps so, they decided they needed to have this change. It went all the way to a house subCommittee Hearing in 1962 no spoiler alert, not really a spoiler, didnt work. These spaceflight pioneers according to forbes were astronaut candidates according to nbc endless secret nasa program according to upi. They train for spaceflight and could have been mercury astronauts according to aaron space. The story that is usually told with all of the air quotes invariably features a hero named jerry, jerry is a young woman, she was in her early 30s at the time. She was the first woman to take all the astronaut tests and was kind of the media darling. Shes the one who spearheaded it in the name most familiar with the story. She is the woman right here. On these stories also invariably feature a villain name to jackie. This woman right here. And jackie is basically like disney villain. She swoops down from on high, gets her wouldbe sisters in the senate with a Committee Hearing and then goes home to her capital in a forest to confer with her pet raven. She is the basically maleficent from sleeping beauty, the original not the angelique no jolie one. Theres been a lot written about the story, pops up with some irregularity. Its appealing, round of feminist story. And its all wrong. The more i dug into it and the more i started really researching it, thats why theres so many air quotes because that whole narrative is just not right. So, im going to tell you about this story, the real story today while also walking you through the precipice of how i came to write the book which i will do so that its burned into your memory. So to start off, when i started reading about the story i read the raw raw feminist one, the one about jerry taking on nasa, this intrepid worrier and shes a woman in her early 30s, in a male dominant field trying to be known for her skill. It hit home to me in a lot of ways. He ends it really felt like a great story to tell because you want who doesnt want giving an unknown figure from history or littleknown youre from history there do. So as i started researching the story something bothered me about the characterization of jackie. Why did she come out of her forest castle just to tell nasa a and to Tell Congress that women should not fly in space. No one is that vindictive, knowing just that without cause. Reading the transcript of the congressional or the subCommittee Hearing, jerry is going on and on about women are smaller and lighter, their Scientific Evidence to support women in space, fewer resources, lighter payload, dont forget in the 1960s if you are too heavy for the rocket if you are over 180 pounds the rocket would not get off the ground. Mass is at a premium here. And in the hearing jackie goes on about how its just not the right time for women. That if the rocket blows up with john glenn on it, its bad, but technology but if it blows up with the women on board its because the woman did something wrong and that pushes womens progress back. So i started reading this and i thought, this villain kind of makes sense but for 1962 the cold war it makes a lot of sense. Also, i have always loved maleficent from sleeping beauty. Im not going to lie, i have that movie on my phone. Its beautiful. I love maleficent so i wanted to learn more about this reallife story. Luckily jackie wrote a memoir and to the source i really read about her specifically immediately she emerged as this epic bad. So, ill give you the cold notes i still cant get cliff notes so cold notes, jackie was an orphan. She was born into abject poverty in florida and she got out of military life to the beauty industry. She learned to fly in her 20s in the 1930s. And by the end of the decade was winning all kinds of awards, was so good that in the Second World War she led the womens air force service pilots, the firstever branch of female pilots flying for the u. S. Military. She ran for congress, she was the first woman to break the sound fair to pray she was friends with multiple president s. She saved lbj slave one day like they do. She and eisenhower were good friends he wrote a memoir at his her house, its very sad. She ran one of the largest cosmetic companies in the country. It was one of the luxury brands. And it gets better, she married floyd, is that of familiar name to anybody . A resounding silence of notes. Floyd was one of the ten richest men in the country. He was one of the robber barons right up with the binder builds, the carnegie is, he was up there. He built america. They are the power coupled to end all Power Couples and nobody has ever heard of them. We all know memoirs can be selfserving. Everyone can tell you that. Jackies memoirs no exception. I wanted to see if everything she said was true. And, for the most part yes, i was able to find a lot of other sources to back up all of her records and all of her stuff at the president s. The first woman to break the sound breaker. I have stuff to back it all up but i cannot find anything to back up your orphan story and she readily admitted that she made that bit up which i thought was interesting. So, digging into jackies early life was like the funnest thing in the world come in involve finding early divorces records with a very excited clerk at the Montgomery County clerks office. I dont even know where that was coming think it was in georgia especially now that im here. So, everything about jackies adult life as a pilot was right. But, her early life turns out to be so much more interesting. I do want to just read a very brief excerpt from the book because its easier to just read this instead of try to encapsulate exactly jackies early life. So, the only thing you need to know going into this, she was not born Jackie Cochran, she was born Bessie Pittman. In the span of a decade, bessie had been made in divorce, welcome to sun then buried him. She buried her father and brother. Her sisters and beloved brother, joseph were raised in their own family and the only family she had left was her mother with whom she continued to class. Nothing but painful memories for bessie so she decided the time had come to make a clean break. One midsummer day in 1929, 23yearold bessie arrived at the train station in pensacola. Her worldly possessions packed into suitcases in her life savings tucked away in her pocketbook including the money she gained from selling her beloved to ford model t. She bought a ticket imported a train heading north. Watching the countryside stream past the window she decided to reinvent her past. She would tell people that she was an orphan, that the pittman said taking her in but never really cared for her pork this would explain her lack of family ties. She would never admit to knowing her biological family and would instead tell her foster parents had been so poor and unloving that she had been forced to leave the house at 11 years old to find work. She also decided never to tell anyone about her marriage her son so she could not bear to erase robert junior entirely he was her happiest memory. She needed to keep her with them so decided to keep the only thing she had left they had shared, name. She would remain a cochran to keep your little boy live in her heart so she would tell people she kicked this week the surname at random running her finger through a phone book. Adsitt went further north bessie faded into obscurity. When she arrived in new york city she retained her skill as the as a nurse of and her moxie but nobody else. Nobody would ever know Bessie Pittman but the world would absolutely no ms. Miss jacqueline cochran. So, that is our villain. Dont you want to know so much more about her . Heres this woman who reinvented herself so completely but she is so complex, theres so much in her back story. She was 23 by the time all that happen. Of course shes going to become this fascinating character to dive into and really understand and she basically i would say she is a real for scott. She was involved in every moment of history and new every Single Person but is not tom hanks. No disrespect to tom hanks. Shes not really the villain of the story. The story of women in space, because jackie was everywhere is really her story. And everyone else kinda comes into it and gives it that dynamic. So, lets look at gery as the woman who gives her context. Up at this backup so it continues to burn into your brains. Gery was 25 years younger than jackie and she grew up in a very different world for women. Jackie would learn to fly in the 1930s when flying was really for the ridge, it wasnt totally on, but it was fairly rare for a woman to fly let alone to be that good. But in the 30s a pilot was the celebrities to end all celebrities like limburg and ehrhardt. These are still names people know even though what they did by todays standard is still terrifying and amazing but this is not a hotshot fighter pilot. Gery grew up in a world where posts were she learned to flies a teenager because he was assessable to younger girls to learn to fly. In the 1950s when she was an adult i was really hard for a woman to make a living its a pilot but it was possible and she did find a way and she worked in a lot of odd jobs to do it. But it was her passion. She felt it was what she was brought on the earth to do. She was a very good pilot but she was not remarkable in her era and the way jackie was remarkable in hers. Then the spaceage happened and my joke is always that it just kind of ruined everything for everyone in the air by changing the game so completely. Tiny little ball of sputnik change the world. In 1959, nasa was created in 1958, ness introduced the world to its first class of astronauts the mercury seven astronauts and these guys became celebrities overnight. The way that pilots were celebrities in the 30s. These were seven men who had passed, they were all military test pilots by nasa design. They had jet test experience, were experimental tests pilots, had a certain number of hours in the air, height and weight requirements if they were over hundred and 80 pounds the rocker was not getting off the ground. Hundred ten men in the country because only men could qualify as test pilot. Hundred ten men met the base requirements and went through extensive personality test, psychological tests, basic like to be like you as a human test in the last two were the finalists, the last 34 went through extensive medical testing out to the in new mexico. Everybody has seen the right stuff that scene i forget the actors name but alan shepard brought down the hall with the animal bag up here with the gery shirt open and that was very real. I met a mercury astronaut and they said that was real. Fun times. So, all of this medical testing that were somewhat familiar with, this happen at the clinic, Randy Lovelace was one of his Jackie Cochran sold his friends. Floyd was the chairman of the board of the Lovelace Foundation. This is important. So, the world is introduced to the mercury astronauts and all of a sudden they are the celebrities of the sky that Everyone Wants to be an gery happens to be at the right place at the right time with the right background, the red experience in the right age and sort of the right physical fitness to take the same medical tests. Randy lovelace is curious whether or not a woman would be able to be physically is fit. She passed. Cant really pass a medical test but she performed adequately enough that he incorporated her results into a medical paper he gave at a medical conference in the fall of 1960. In the fall of 1960 you have the words woman and asked her not in the same sentence. What you think the press is going to pick up as the story . The press went nuts. Its the exact same way you have discovery of evidence of past water on mars becomes water on mars. Woman passes staying test as astronaut theres a woman astronaut, the media went crazy and completely came up with this whole thing up there is a woman asked her not a womans can it go into space, nasa is trending woman and it becomes a media frenzy with jerry at the center. Eventually lovelace being a dr. We all know control of one is a very poor sample sites. So, jerry henry and e get more women to do the tests and get more data and jackie is involved, randy asked her to be in an official advisor to the inquiry and theres more data. And heres where the story gets really messy come of the media is saying, there is a group of astronaut trainees that nasa will send the first woman into space. Gery is running around the country giving talks saying she is going to be the first roman astronaut and are 16 women in training which was not true. And jackie is sitting there like none of this is real at all and everyone is asking me but nobody is telling me and it becomes this he said she said an absolute mess. And in writing the book it was hard to figure out what is real and whats not and heres where archives became my best friend. If you are a nerd, archives are the best things ever. Like i said, jackie was good friends with president eisenhower and an epic packrat. She kept every scrap of paper that ever crossed her desk. And its all in the eisenhower library. I had so much fun. When you go to the archives you get a finding guide and its a list of whats in that box so you can pull a box set a time because you can only look at so much. The finding guide for jackie is this big. Theres like 60 linear feet of material. Its so good. She kept everything. She kept every letter, she kept a carbon copy of every letter she wrote, copy of every letter she received, copies of letters she was cced on. Copies of letters she has people to center because she was curious what they are saying about her and this woman astronaut business without telling her. To keep it straight i was able to actually see what every person was saying and this isnt just the women, and ended up getting all the way to nasa gery was sending telegrams to the white house and i was able to find the white house routing slips to say kennedy got this telegram from her didnt want to deal with it, have nasa deal with it and dismiss her. All of these details which help rebuild the story of how complicated this was and how many people were drawn into this insane i also found some really weird on ebay which is the best and worst thing, best for finding cool stuff and worse for your bank account including littleknown memoirs that people had written, letters that were somehow not filed in the national archives. It all helps really clarify the details and among them was transcripts of public talks and articles so to compare what jackie was saying versus what jerry was saying and i just want to read a quick where is this thing . Give you a quick example of how different all of these opinions were. This is gery addressing a crowd at an event, jerry and jackie were co headlining an event, super fun. I would not have known that except jackie kept her diary in very good order. Women have long contributed to the advancement of science. This was no different employing everyone there to contribute to the best of their godgiven abilities, having been a professional pilot i feel i can best contribute to Space Research in the area of astronaut testing and training to prove women have the capabilities of spaceflight i had the privilege of undergoing testing. She didnt really. She had been appointed a nasa consultant she erroneously told the crowd but she says she is the most on consulted consulting to attend any Government Agency today. Im not a feminist nor do i want to be a Harriet Beecher stowe. I do not wish to be her when no martyr but would willingly give my life to this purpose and counted a blessing to have served my god and country to the utmost. But god is my pilot she finished i hope to make that spaceflight. Applause filled the room. She regained her seat as jackie moved to the podium. The Lovelace Foundation of medical research gave the first medical checks to a large group of candidates. Jackie didnt waste any time. This unofficial and volunteer medical Research Project through publicity, editorial license and Wishful Thinking became parlayed into the widespread belief that there is an estimate program for women. It was a very different version of the same sort story they just heard from jerry. It gets really messy and complicated as they go back and forth. Theres one other letter i want to read. Like i said, but this got all the way to a subCommittee Hearing and said even got to the. That jerry and another one of the women pilots, jamie hard who is married to philip park at a meeting with lbj when he was vice president. Jackie saved all bjs life one day. I had never heard of this letter before i found it in the lbj archives which is cool and its like the handwritten signature of lbj and its not protected. You can pick it up. I love history. Dear jackie, thank you so much for your nice letter in the enclosure. It is always fun to see you. I had a good time telling jerry and