Speaker 1: The Space Shuttle challengers. Five astronauts are sleeping now after
Speaker 1: a virtually flawless launch and first day. This is the
Speaker 1: seventh Shuttle mission, and with no hitches, it might have
Speaker 1: been considered routine. But as the challenger climbed today, it
Speaker 1: carried an American woman astronaut, Sally Ride, into space and
Speaker 1: into history.
Speaker 2: The story of the first American men to go to
Speaker 2: space has been well told. Those brave Kaki test pilots
Speaker 2: were selected for Project Mercury in nineteen fifty nine because
Speaker 2: they had the right stuff, as the author Tom Wolfe
Speaker 2: famously put it, But it wasn't until nineteen seventy eight
Speaker 2: that NASA opened the door for women to join the
Speaker 2: US astronaut program.
Speaker 3: The civil rights movement happened, the feminism movement happened. That's
Speaker 3: when NASA started getting questions about, Okay, why is this
Speaker 3: not a priority, And so it really was something they
Speaker 3: just could not ignore anymore.
Speaker 2: That's Bloomberg Space reporter Lauren Grush In a new book
Speaker 2: called The Six The Untold Story of America's first women Astronauts,
Speaker 2: she recounts the very different path these pioneers took to
Speaker 2: reach NASA and the challenge is they had to overcome
Speaker 2: along the way. I'm wes Kasova today on the Big
Speaker 2: Take the Women who Shattered the Highest glass ceiling, Lauren.
Speaker 2: This is a really big book, for one hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty plus pages. How long have you been at it?
Speaker 4: It has been a three year project.
Speaker 3: But to be fair, if you've ever edited a piece
Speaker 3: of mine, you'll know that I always tend to write long,
Speaker 3: so I actually was concerned I would not meet the
Speaker 3: word count, but then, of course I exceeded it and
Speaker 3: had to cut a.
Speaker 4: Lot out of it.
Speaker 3: But hey, when you're writing a biography of incredible women,
Speaker 3: there's not enough pages for all of the interesting things
Speaker 3: that they've done.
Speaker 2: So why don't you tell us about the six?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 3: So, I think everybody has some kind of idea of
Speaker 3: who Sally Ride is. Obviously, she's the first American woman
Speaker 3: to go to space. I bet some people don't even
Speaker 3: know she was actually the second woman ever to go
Speaker 3: to space. But yes, Sally Ride's name kind of resonates
Speaker 3: for a lot of people. But what I think a
Speaker 3: lot of the public doesn't know is that she was
Speaker 3: one of a group of six women who could have
Speaker 3: all been the first American woman to go to space.
Speaker 3: They were all extremely qualified, but one of them had
Speaker 3: to go first. And so with the six, I really
Speaker 3: wanted to shine light on the other five women's stories
Speaker 3: and also the accomplishments that they made, because obviously they
Speaker 3: did amazing things as well, they just had different spots.
Speaker 4: In the order. I mean, these six women, they're just incredible.
Speaker 3: So just to name them, obviously we know Sally Ride,
Speaker 3: she's a form i'mer tennis player and astrophysicist. Judy Resnik
Speaker 3: she's an electrical engineer and the second American woman to
Speaker 3: fly to space. There's Kathy Sullivan, an oceanographer and geologist,
Speaker 3: also the first American woman to perform a spacewalk.
Speaker 4: After her came Anna Fisher.
Speaker 3: She's an emergency room doctor and she became the first
Speaker 3: mother to fly to space. After her was Ray Seddon,
Speaker 3: also a surgeon and a doctor, and followed up by
Speaker 3: Shannon Lucid, who was a chemist.
Speaker 2: What's so interesting about this is that all of them
Speaker 2: started the same year in the same class of astronauts.
Speaker 3: Right absolutely, they were selected among a group of eight
Speaker 3: thousand applicants in nineteen seventy eight. So what the selection
Speaker 3: committee did was they actually narrowed that down to over
Speaker 3: two hundred finalists, and these women were among those finalists,
Speaker 3: and they had to go through what I think is
Speaker 3: a very extreme selection process. They had to come down
Speaker 3: to Houston, Texas, where the NASA Johnson Space Center is,
Speaker 3: and go through a week of physical exams, medical exams,
Speaker 3: they had to undergo a psych evaluation. The biggest thing
Speaker 3: they had to undergo and was really kind of what
Speaker 3: decided their fate, was an hour and a half long
Speaker 3: interview with the selection committee. And I can only imagine
Speaker 3: that was probably the most intimidating interview of one's life.
Speaker 4: But yes, it was simply just to gauge a little
Speaker 4: bit more about who they were.
Speaker 3: They talked about what they had done in high school
Speaker 3: and what led them to the now, and through that process,
Speaker 3: the selection committee members tried to understand if this really
Speaker 3: was the job for them and if they could hack
Speaker 3: it as an astronaut.
Speaker 2: Even the idea that they were up for selection was
Speaker 2: pretty historic because women just weren't allowed in before in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy eight, right, So.
Speaker 4: The requirements prior to when these women joined were very
Speaker 4: limiting for folks back when NASA was first formed, they
Speaker 4: were gathering people for the Mercury seven. It was very strict.
Speaker 4: You had to be a test.
Speaker 3: Pilot, and back then the only people who could be
Speaker 3: test pilots were men because women were banned from flying
Speaker 3: jets for the military, and so it was pretty much
Speaker 3: guarantee that women could not join. And at the same time,
Speaker 3: they also wanted people who were engineers and scientists with
Speaker 3: advanced degrees, so it was probably the most stringent requirements
Speaker 3: you could possibly have back then. Then over time, you know,
Speaker 3: as NASA tried to fix its mistakes and be more inclusive,
Speaker 3: they also created a new role, which was called the
Speaker 3: Mission Specialists. So while they still prioritized pilots and people
Speaker 3: with jet experience who could fly the Shuttle, they created
Speaker 3: this new role which was for astronauts who had backgrounds
Speaker 3: in engineering, stem and so all they needed to be
Speaker 3: selected was a degree in one of those fields. Obviously
Speaker 3: an advanced degree was preferred, and they had to be
Speaker 3: a certain height, and they had to pass a basic
Speaker 3: physical exam, which also I believe had relaxed requirements. So
Speaker 3: it was the most inclusive selection process that NASA had
Speaker 3: ever done, and at the same time, they also very
Speaker 3: much wanted to spread the word to women and people
Speaker 3: of color at the time. They made that a priority,
Speaker 3: and so that allowed for a much more diverse pool
Speaker 3: of applicants to apply, leading to the sixth joining and
Speaker 3: also during their class, they were the first women, but
Speaker 3: it also included the first three black astronauts to join
Speaker 3: the program and also the first Asian American astronaut.
Speaker 2: Why nineteen seventy eight, What was the thing that made
Speaker 2: NASA realized they needed to go past the kind of
Speaker 2: fighter jock selection process.
Speaker 3: Well, let's not forget that they still got flack for
Speaker 3: simply picking men. Back in the sixties.
Speaker 4: There was a great of.
Speaker 3: Women who underwent a series of tests that the Mercury Seven,
Speaker 3: the first seven astronauts that NASA picked underwent.
Speaker 4: The thirteen women passed.
Speaker 3: Those tests, and they desperately wanted to keep training to
Speaker 3: potentially go to space one day, but they were blocked
Speaker 3: from pursuing that dream further, and so there was a
Speaker 3: congressional hearing in which they desperately tried to get NASA
Speaker 3: to consider them and to let them keep training, but
Speaker 3: it just wasn't.
Speaker 4: A priority for NASA at the time.
Speaker 3: Simply because we were in a space race with the
Speaker 3: Soviet Union. So I think the idea was that anything
Speaker 3: that detracted from winning that race was seen as.
Speaker 4: Some kind of detriment, and that wasn't a priority.
Speaker 5: I believe that this nation should commit it, so achieving
Speaker 5: the goal before this decade is out of landing a
Speaker 5: man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.
Speaker 5: No single space project in this period will be more
Speaker 5: impressive to mankind, are more important for the long range
Speaker 5: exploration of space.
Speaker 3: In the meantime, the Soviet Union did end up sending
Speaker 3: the first woman into space, but NASA downplayed that that
Speaker 3: was just not a race that the US was keen
Speaker 3: on winning at the time. Then as the years progressed,
Speaker 3: the world changed, the civil rights movement happened, the feminism
Speaker 3: movement happened, and that's when NASA started getting questions about, Okay,
Speaker 3: why is this not a priority. And there's some internal
Speaker 3: work done in the book showing just how awful NASA's
Speaker 3: diversity efforts were, and so it really was something they
Speaker 3: just could not ignore anymore, and the selection committee in
Speaker 3: the nineteen seventies really made that a priority, and ever since,
Speaker 3: this class of astronauts was selected. Every subsequent astronaut class
Speaker 3: has been closer to parity and equality than we had
Speaker 3: back in the early days of the program.
Speaker 2: You said that one of the requirements was each of
Speaker 2: these women astronauts had to have a degree in one
Speaker 2: of the stem fields. If you look at the resumes
Speaker 2: of these astronauts are pretty incredible. Most of them have PhDs.
Speaker 2: Two of them were medical doctors. These were people who
Speaker 2: had brilliant careers already before they decided to go into space.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, but in reality, they faced a lot of struggles
Speaker 3: even before they came to NASA, because some of them
Speaker 3: really had to fight to be taken seriously in order
Speaker 3: to pursue their academic ambitions. I mean, some of the
Speaker 3: women were younger when they were chosen, but Shannon Lucid
Speaker 3: was the oldest one of the bunch, and her story
Speaker 3: I find extremely compelling because she grew up just slightly
Speaker 3: a few years before many of the women in the book,
Speaker 3: and that the amount of sexism and vitriol that she
Speaker 3: faced just because she.
Speaker 4: Wanted to work. She had so many men telling.
Speaker 3: Her that she'd never get a job or that she
Speaker 3: couldn't be paid the same as her male colleagues. You know,
Speaker 3: she just was constantly trying to just be taken seriously,
Speaker 3: and it was just such a struggle for her. So
Speaker 3: I find those early days really compelling. Just to learn
Speaker 3: what brought them to the types of careers that they wanted,
Speaker 3: and then also learning about why they each wanted to
Speaker 3: be an astronaut, I think was fascinating. One thing I
Speaker 3: keep saying is the six is a great example of
Speaker 3: there's no one true.
Speaker 4: Path to space.
Speaker 3: They all had such diverse backgrounds and diverse interests. And also,
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people assume that anyone who
Speaker 3: wants to be an astronaut it was just this lifelong
Speaker 3: dream from the start, But for half of them, it
Speaker 3: really wasn't anything that they considered. A big part of
Speaker 3: that was because they just didn't think it was possible
Speaker 3: for them.
Speaker 4: So it was only when.
Speaker 3: The astronaut selection process was opened up to a bunch
Speaker 3: more diverse class of people that they thought, oh, this
Speaker 3: is something I could do. I think I could be
Speaker 3: really good at it. And I think that's a great lesson.
Speaker 3: When you make opportunities available for people, they start to
Speaker 3: realize that they can do these things that they didn't
Speaker 3: think they could do before, and you find much more
Speaker 3: interesting and unique people than you would have found.
Speaker 2: After the break. Getting into the space program was just
Speaker 2: the first challenge these astronauts had to face. Lauren getting
Speaker 2: selected for this space program was obviously a big milestone,
Speaker 2: But then these women astronauts went into a culture that
Speaker 2: was very male, and you write that they faced all
Speaker 2: kinds of challenges once they got in the door.
Speaker 3: First and foremost, the challenges revolved around training. So for
Speaker 3: Kathy Sullivan, who was an oceanographer and geologist, you know,
Speaker 3: she would probably breeze through the sections about oceanography and
Speaker 3: geology because you know, a lot of the satellites they
Speaker 3: deployed were actually looking back at Earth.
Speaker 4: Same for Sally Ryde.
Speaker 3: She was an astrophysicist, and when they did after physics lessons,
Speaker 3: I'm sure she was old hat for her. They had
Speaker 3: to stay current on a NASA's fleet of T thirty
Speaker 3: eight jets, described to me as the hardest jet to fly,
Speaker 3: but they were back seaters, so they didn't actually fly
Speaker 3: the pains themselves. But when talking to some of their
Speaker 3: former colleagues, it was admitted to me that some of
Speaker 3: them let them take off in the land, which was
Speaker 3: a no no back then. But I would say probably
Speaker 3: one of the biggest dressers that the women had to
Speaker 3: deal with was unfortunately our press ancestors. So back in
Speaker 3: the day, the media was not so enlightened in how
Speaker 3: they covered the first six women, and that was reflected
Speaker 3: in some of the terrible questions that they asked.
Speaker 6: What happens when you meet a man who's not in
Speaker 6: the space program and doesn't know who you are, and
Speaker 6: you say I'm an astronaut, as they say, you're too
Speaker 6: cute to be an astronaut. Come on, a little lady,
Speaker 6: you can't be an astronaut.
Speaker 4: I just tell them I'm an engineer.
Speaker 6: You don't tell them you're an astronaut.
Speaker 7: I'm lucky.
Speaker 6: Ask do you really? I mean, when you meet people
Speaker 6: for the first time, what about the whole business about
Speaker 6: social relationships? Does it make it? Are some men another
Speaker 6: factory to in Nashrona.
Speaker 8: I don't know if they are, They're probably not my friends.
Speaker 2: That was astronaut Judy Resnik being interviewed in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 3: When the women were first announced to the world. One
Speaker 3: member of the press asked if Shannon's three children were
Speaker 3: considered when they selected her. The women had to undergo
Speaker 3: water survival training in order to fly in the T
Speaker 3: thirty eight jets, So basically they had to show that
Speaker 3: if they bailed out of the jet, they could survive
Speaker 3: landing in water under parachutes.
Speaker 4: That was one of their first big training sessions.
Speaker 3: And as they were training, the press kind of just
Speaker 3: mobbed them in the water.
Speaker 4: There were boats and rafts of.
Speaker 3: Press trying to take pictures of them as they're undergoing
Speaker 3: this very sensitive training exercise, one that they really needed
Speaker 3: to be focused on, and the press would yell things
Speaker 3: at them. I think there's one instance of somebody yelling,
Speaker 3: you know, give us a smile, and maybe Ray or
Speaker 3: Sally shot back no, and somebody also yelled back, hey, miss.
Speaker 4: And Ray said it's doctor.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: A great exchange is like that.
Speaker 3: But I think one of the biggest examples of how
Speaker 3: a lot of growing up the press still had to
Speaker 3: do was when Sally Ride was first picked.
Speaker 4: For her flight.
Speaker 3: Her press conferences that she did with the media are
Speaker 3: just so cringey to listen back to, and there's some
Speaker 3: great quotes from there. I think the biggest one that's
Speaker 3: probably the most infamous is before she launched on her flight,
Speaker 3: someone from Time asked her if she cried or wept
Speaker 3: when something went wrong in the simulator, and she handled
Speaker 3: it the best she could, she just laughed and she
Speaker 3: was just, you know, why doesn't anyone ask Rick, her colleague,
Speaker 3: one of those questions.
Speaker 2: Here's Sally Ride speaking to Gloria Steinem in a nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty three interview on ABC.
Speaker 8: Really, the only bad moments in our t involved the press.
Speaker 8: The press was an added pressure on the flight for me.
Speaker 8: And whereas NASA appeared to be very enlightened about flying
Speaker 8: women astronauts, the press didn't appear to be. The things
Speaker 8: that they were concerned with were not the same things
Speaker 8: that I was concerned with.
Speaker 6: They were since the bathroom facilities.
Speaker 8: Bathroom facilities?
Speaker 7: How much did you get to ask that?
Speaker 8: Just about every interview I got asked that everybody wanted
Speaker 8: to know about what kind of makeup I was taking up.
Speaker 8: They didn't care about how well prepared I was to
Speaker 8: operate the arm or deploy communications satellites.
Speaker 2: Lauren, that's sort of the outside world looking in and
Speaker 2: seeing these women as a curiosity. What about inside the
Speaker 2: program itself?
Speaker 3: When the women came in. They did really try their
Speaker 3: best to be inclusive for them. They had to make
Speaker 3: space for women as they came in. But obviously, you know,
Speaker 3: not everyone was on board with this. You know, there
Speaker 3: were some astronauts who were already with NASA at the
Speaker 3: time who were on record as saying, you know, I
Speaker 3: kind of considered this job to be a man's job.
Speaker 4: Even some of the astronauts they came in with them
Speaker 4: were a little skeptical.
Speaker 3: A lot of the military folks, they just weren't used
Speaker 3: to working with women at a professional capacity, so that
Speaker 3: took a little getting used to, and they obviously had
Speaker 3: some biases when they came in. Some have admitted to that,
Speaker 3: But as they worked more with them and saw just
Speaker 3: how hard they trained and how hard they were working,
Speaker 3: they reformed their attitudes and realized that this job was
Speaker 3: just as female as it was male. And you know,
Speaker 3: they also came into resistance with other women, so some
Speaker 3: of the astronauts or the men's wives were not so
Speaker 3: keen on the women working with their husbands. So, as
Speaker 3: I mentioned, the women had to stay current with their
Speaker 3: T thirty eight training, and that meant spending a lot
Speaker 3: of time in the backseat with one of their male coworkers,
Speaker 3: and some of the wives of those astronauts didn't want
Speaker 3: them flying with the women in their back seat. And
Speaker 3: there was also just some of the men thought that
Speaker 3: maybe working closely with the women would be seen as
Speaker 3: improper and that had to quickly be abandoned because they
Speaker 3: had so much work.
Speaker 4: That they had to do together. There are definitely some
Speaker 4: hiccups along the way, but a lot of the women
Speaker 4: have expressed to me that they were treated very fairly
Speaker 4: and they were very happy with the way they were treated.
Speaker 6: But once you got into the program, wasn't there a
Speaker 6: little bit of resentment or a little bit of male
Speaker 6: chauvinism that was demonstrated to there's a very male kind
Speaker 6: of fighter pilot world that you were in.
Speaker 2: Drink not at all.
Speaker 8: As a matter of fact, I think everybody leaned over
Speaker 8: backwards to make sure that we were treated as equals.
Speaker 3: I think another thing that they also did not want
Speaker 3: was to be singled out in any way. So they
Speaker 3: very much expressed that they didn't want to be the
Speaker 3: girl astronauts. They wanted to be one of the guys.
Speaker 3: So they were very keen on not making big displays
Speaker 3: of their gender once they arrived at NASA. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's a great moment where somebody tried to hold the
Speaker 3: door open for Sally Ride and she just pushed him
Speaker 3: right through, which is very in tune with her personality
Speaker 3: from what I've learned of her. Anytime someone could refer
Speaker 3: to them as a lady astronaut, they shot that down
Speaker 3: very quickly, and it was very much in their interests
Speaker 3: to be considered just one of the guys.
Speaker 2: Learn After all this training, it came time to fly,
Speaker 2: and your book opens with this just beautiful, serene moment.
Speaker 2: Can you describe what happened? It involves Anna Fisher.
Speaker 3: I opened the book with the night before Sally Ride
Speaker 3: takes her first trip to space. It's obviously a huge moment,
Speaker 3: and one thing that I learned, Anna Fisher was the
Speaker 3: lead cape crusader for Sally's flight. So cape crusader is
Speaker 3: a fun little term to refer to the support astronauts.
Speaker 3: Many of the astronauts would work the missions. They'd go
Speaker 3: down to Cape Canaveral in Florida, and they were responsible
Speaker 3: for the switch checklist, so they would make sure all
Speaker 3: of the switches in the cockpit or the cabin were
Speaker 3: set to where they needed to be prior to flight,
Speaker 3: and at the time, Anna Fisher was very pregnant with
Speaker 3: her first daughter, and so she had one of those
Speaker 3: shifts where she had to stay in the cockpit and
Speaker 3: watch the switches before Sally came in. And I just
Speaker 3: thought it was an amazing moment because here she is
Speaker 3: a pregnant woman. I think she was about eight months
Speaker 3: pregnant at the time, and just that sight of a
Speaker 3: pregnant woman watching the cockpit waiting for the first American woman.
Speaker 4: To fly to space.
Speaker 3: I thought that was a really poetic scene and a
Speaker 3: great way to open the book.
Speaker 2: And then you have just the absolute mayhem when Sally
Speaker 2: Ride took her place in that cockpit.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: I think luckily for Sally, she was kind of unaware
Speaker 3: at the time of just the entire media mob that
Speaker 3: was down the road.
Speaker 4: It was just the media.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think there were about five hundred thousand
Speaker 3: people who'd come to Florida that day to witness Sally fly.
Speaker 2: And you describe what it was like actually for her
Speaker 2: in the cockpit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think for her it was finally dawning on
Speaker 3: her that this was actually going to happen. And she
Speaker 3: has this great quote that she later said that once
Speaker 3: the engines ignited and they started flying, she was overcome
Speaker 3: with this realization that her fate was not her own,
Speaker 3: that whatever was going to happen to her was going
Speaker 3: to happen to her in that moment, and she just
Speaker 3: kind of had to surrender to the engineering and you know,
Speaker 3: hope for the best.
Speaker 8: The thing that I'll remember most about that flight is
Speaker 8: that it was fun, and in fact, I'm sure it's
Speaker 8: the most fun I'll ever have in my.
Speaker 2: Life when we come back the post NASA years, Lauren,
Speaker 2: Once that glass ceiling was broken once and for all,
Speaker 2: then women became a regular part of Space Shuttle and
Speaker 2: other missions after that. What happened to the six they each.
Speaker 3: Went on to fly, I think the order I mentioned
Speaker 3: them earlier, that's the order in which they flew. After
Speaker 3: Sally Judy Resnick flew, she was the second American woman
Speaker 3: in space, and so you can only imagine what was
Speaker 3: the question that she was constantly asked. Was she upset
Speaker 3: that she wasn't the first? And she handled that very gracefully.
Speaker 3: And she also admitted to a colleague that after watching
Speaker 3: Sally in the odyssey that she went through. You know,
Speaker 3: Sally dealt with press before her flight. It was after
Speaker 3: she came back that the kind of the floodgates just
Speaker 3: opened and the amount of request for her was just.
Speaker 4: Staggering and overwhelming.
Speaker 3: So Judy expressed that when she saw that level of
Speaker 3: attention that she was actually quite content with going second. Tragically,
Speaker 3: for Judy, though she did fly to space once and
Speaker 3: then on her second flight, it was the infamous Challenger accident,
Speaker 3: and she sadly lost her life.
Speaker 7: There appears to have been a very serious accident involving
Speaker 7: the Space Shuttle Challenger. The launch took place just a
Speaker 7: few minutes ago, a few moments ago from Cape Canaveral.
Speaker 7: It had been delayed four times. It appeared to be
Speaker 7: a good launch at the point of departure from the
Speaker 7: pad at Cape Canaveral. There had been, as we said,
Speaker 7: previous delays of four different attempts. This was the fourth one.
Speaker 7: It had been delayed a couple of hours by ice
Speaker 7: by a faulty gauge. Then it appeared everything was good
Speaker 7: for a launch, but shortly after the launch there was
Speaker 7: an explosion.
Speaker 3: After Judy Kathy Sullivan flew and she actually flew with
Speaker 3: Sally on her flight, so that was Sally's second flight,
Speaker 3: and that trip was also incredible because she became the
Speaker 3: first American woman to perform a spacewalk.
Speaker 4: And then Kathy also went on to have an amazing career.
Speaker 3: She was part of the Space Shuttle crew that deployed
Speaker 3: the Hubble Space Telescope. And even beyond that, Kathy is
Speaker 3: just an avid explorer. That's part of her history which
Speaker 3: I detail in the book. And even recently, she made
Speaker 3: history in twenty twenty, she dove into Challengers Deep in
Speaker 3: a tiny submersible.
Speaker 9: Remember the name Kathy Sullivan, Folks. She made history as
Speaker 9: the first US woman astronaut to walk in space, and
Speaker 9: now another historic journey puts her in a league of
Speaker 9: her own. She recently became the first woman to reach
Speaker 9: Challenger Deep, the deepest known point in the Western Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 3: Following her was Anna Fisher, and I mentioned that she
Speaker 3: was pregnant when she sat in the cockpit for Sally's flight. Well,
Speaker 3: she gave birth to her daughter, Kristen, and so when
Speaker 3: she flew, she was actually assigned to her flight just
Speaker 3: before she gave birth, and when she flew she became
Speaker 3: the first mother to fly to space.
Speaker 4: Also, Kristen Fisher is a friend in peer.
Speaker 3: She's now a space reporter herself at CNN, which I
Speaker 3: think is very apt.
Speaker 4: After Anna flu Ray said and came next.
Speaker 3: She was worried her flight was going to be a
Speaker 3: bit boring, but she experienced a bunch of delays with
Speaker 3: her mission that made her really frustrated, and it looked
Speaker 3: as if they were just going to deploy a couple
Speaker 3: of satellites and call it a day. Obviously, astronauts are
Speaker 3: very eager to fly, no matter what.
Speaker 4: It is their aim in life to go to space.
Speaker 3: But there are some space flights that are more fun
Speaker 3: than others. Obviously if you do a space walk, that's
Speaker 3: more exciting if you go on a higher inclination around
Speaker 3: the Earth. So for Ray, she was worried it was
Speaker 3: just going to be a couple satellite deployments. But then
Speaker 3: one of the satellites doesn't deploy as planned, and so
Speaker 3: they have to do this quick kind of regrouping.
Speaker 4: And I referred to it.
Speaker 3: As a heist because the way they had to kind
Speaker 3: of fix the satellite. Following her as Shannon Lucid and
Speaker 3: it's ironic that Shannon was last, because she was probably
Speaker 3: the one that was most keen to go to space
Speaker 3: out of all of them.
Speaker 4: You know, she had a lifelong ambition to be an astronaut.
Speaker 8: Well, I'm just really proud to be an American and
Speaker 8: I'm just really part proud to be part of this
Speaker 8: cooperative program that we have going with the Russians.
Speaker 2: It was just a great mission and I just had
Speaker 2: a great time.
Speaker 3: And then all of them went on to have amazing careers.
Speaker 3: Some of them left the program fairly early after the
Speaker 3: Challenger accident. Sally Ride left fairly soon after that, and
Speaker 3: she dedicated her life to academia. Probably her biggest claim
Speaker 3: to fame post NASA is creating Sally Ride's science and
Speaker 3: nonprofit that was geared towards inspiring young children, notably young girls,
Speaker 3: to get into STEM. And also Sally's story doesn't in there.
Speaker 3: She wound up falling in love with another woman named
Speaker 3: tam O'Shaughnessy, who was one of her childhood friends and
Speaker 3: also a tennis player who they played together.
Speaker 4: Tragically, Sally did.
Speaker 3: Die in twenty twelve from cancer, but when she died,
Speaker 3: her partner came out and proclaimed that she was her
Speaker 3: partner and had been her partner for many decades at
Speaker 3: that point, and that made Sally the first known LGBTQ astronaut.
Speaker 3: And Tam told me that, you know, her coming out
Speaker 3: and revealing that she's received, you know, a ton of
Speaker 3: letters and notes from people saying that her doing that
Speaker 3: made them comfortable coming out as well, and so she's,
Speaker 3: you know, very grateful for that. I feel like, honestly,
Speaker 3: I could write six more books about all of these women.
Speaker 3: There's so much information about them that I could not
Speaker 3: include in the four hundred pages that I did, So
Speaker 3: there's plenty of information, and I encourage everyone to read
Speaker 3: as much as they can about these women because they
Speaker 3: are just fantastic.
Speaker 2: Lauren, always great talking to you. Congrats on the book,
Speaker 2: Thanks for coming.
Speaker 4: On the show, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take.
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