Female astronaut - Jerrie Cobb

[surveyor]

I knew Jerrie by virtue of the fact that dad worked on her aircraft in Colombia SA. She owned a twin Aero Commander and landed it at the mission base from time to time. The airstrip there was between hills in the llanos of central Colombia and the grass strip went up one valley and down another with a slight dogleg in the middle (you could not see one end of the airstrip from the other), it was not quite level at one end (from side to side), with a hugh tree at the end, and a hill at the other. I remember watching her one time come in the approach over the tree, then rapidly descend towards the strip while tipping her wings to match the slope and setting the Commander down on all three wheels perfectly (it had a retractable nose and wing wheels) I was impressed after seeing the STOL aircraft that normally would land there. Jerrie loved the color purple, and had dad repaint her Commander with a stripe down each side.

America’s 1st female astronaut candidate, Jerrie Cobb, dies

America’s first female astronaut candidate, pilot Jerrie Cobb, who pushed for equality in space but never reached its heights, has died.

www.airforcetimes.com

 

[surveyor]

She is in the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

https://www.nationalaviation.org/our-enshrinees/cobb-geraldyn-jerrie-m/

 

[Jonny]

Sad she never made it to space. Still, what an amazing life.
Rest in peace you badass lady.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Great story.

After all these years were finally hearing the stories of women in the space program. Sad it’s taken this long

 

[Tom Dunlap]

I got to meet a man who was in the original NASA Mercury program. He didn’t make the cut for The Seven. He told me that he went back and looked at the test data for all of the men in the program and found that they all were as close to clones of each other as there could be. There were other reasons me didn’t go into The Seven. So many cool stories. Chuck Yeager was a s wild as he’s been portrayed...and more!