Sally Ride views the Earth from the pilot’s seat on Space Shuttle Challenger, June 1983. NASA

  © 2025 by Smithsonian Institution

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

  Published by Smithsonian Books

  PO Box 37012, MRC 513

  Washington, DC 20013

  smithsonianbooks.com

  Director: Carolyn Gleason

  Senior Editor: Jaime Schwender

  Production Editor: Julie Huggins

  Digital Imaging Technician: Bill Whitcher

  Edited by Gregory McNamee

  Book designed by David Griffin, adapted for ebook

  This book may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information please write the Special Markets Department at the address or website above.

  Library of Congress Catalog Control Number 2025024059.

  Hardcover ISBN 9781588347763

  Ebook ISBN 9781588347770

  For permission to reproduce illustrations appearing in this book, please correspond directly with the owners of the works, as noted in the captions. Smithsonian Books does not retain reproduction rights for these images individually, or maintain a file of addresses for sources.

  a_prh_7.3_153595843_c0_r0

  CONTENTS

  DEDICATION

  PREFACE

  INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER 1 Making Space For Women

  CHAPTER 2 The Trailblazing Generation

  CHAPTER 3 The Inspired Generation

  CHAPTER 4 The Empowered Generation

  CHAPTER 5 Astronauts at Work

  CHAPTER 6 Balancing Acts

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  APPENDIX A

  APPENDIX B

  LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

  NOTES

  INDEX

  Dedicated to these trailblazing, inspired, empowered women

  PREFACE

  In 1978 NASA announced the first six women astronaut candidates, almost twenty years after America’s first astronauts, all men, were introduced and ten years after men went to the Moon. Not yet thirty years old, I was finishing my doctoral degree in interdisciplinary American studies and anticipating an academic career. I was one of only three young women in my high school graduation class to pursue a PhD, while a number of our male peers flocked to medical and law schools at a time when few women were admitted. I identified with those six women astronauts as fellow midcentury girls—all born within a few years of 1950, coming of age in the social and cultural milieu of the 1960s, and preparing for careers with graduate education in the 1970s. We were a virtual cohort on the cusp of adventures and possibilities.

  I especially took note of Margaret Rhea Seddon, also from a small town in a southern state. She had the temerity not only to be popular and smart in high school but also to leave Tennessee to attend the University of California, Berkeley, a foreign land to a sheltered southern belle, and then go to medical school and become a surgeon. All six candidates chosen that year had similar histories of early achievement, atypical educational interests, and experiences as the “first,” “only,” or “one of a few.” I was close enough to them in age that we might have been in school together, childhood playmates, teen best friends, or friendly competitors. Like them, I aspired to a career, left home to study elsewhere, and found myself something of an anomaly with lofty, untraditional ambitions. Like them, I wanted to test myself in the broader world by pushing boundaries to see what I could accomplish. I have followed their careers, and those of their many successors, with interest and admiration while thriving in my own career related to space exploration.

  In our rosy youths, we were largely unaware that certain social and legal barriers might impede our futures. Until well into the 1970s, as females we could not attend most Ivy League schools, and certainly not military academies. We could not obtain a loan to buy our first car or get a credit card in our own name; we needed a father or husband to assume responsibility for our payments. We were not allowed to serve on a jury. We were typically paid less than men for jobs, but we paid more for health insurance. We had no recourse against sexual harassment. We were quizzed and sometimes mocked for wanting to do something adventurous with our lives. Although our ambitions were untraditional, we soon learned that social traditions complicated our journeys. We had to be persistent when others discouraged or doubted our ambitions.

  Since that first group of women, a total of sixty-one American women have earned astronaut pins and served in every position in the NASA astronaut corps, on land and in space. They have flown on more than a hundred space shuttle missions and more than thirty long-duration stays on the Russian Space Station Mir and the International Space Station, and they aren’t finished. They have flown on every spacecraft in operation since the 1980s—shuttle, Soyuz, SpaceX Crew Dragon—and one woman is already assigned as a crewmember of the new Orion craft on a planned Artemis mission to the Moon. They have spacewalked, operated robotics, carried out scientific research, operated and repaired spacecraft systems, and commanded missions. Their achievements have equaled, and in some instances surpassed, those of their male peers in the United States and abroad. They have dispelled any doubts about the ability of women to have successful careers as astronauts and have inspired one another, as well as countless others, to aim high.

  In preparing this book, I consulted a variety of published and archived historical sources and extant oral history interviews for all sixty-one women. In addition, I had electronic interviews and conversations with thirty of the thirty-two living former US women astronauts who responded generously to my outreach with original material and insight. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to contact any of the twenty-three current women astronauts directly, although NASA informed them of my project so they could contact me voluntarily. None did, and I assume they were too busy with their own work. What this means is that perspectives from the youngest of America’s women astronauts are missing here; they might have been an interesting counterpoint to the experiences and reflections of the earlier women. To tell the stories of the younger women selected in the 2000s and the seven deceased women astronauts, I relied on their official NASA biographical fact sheets and information already in the public domain, including published interviews and podcasts.

  Only seven former women astronauts—Rhea Seddon, Kathryn Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, Nicole Stott, Eileen Collins, Jan Davis, and Cady Coleman—have thus far published their memoirs, and some have published short lives for a young audience. Typically, other books for juvenile and young adult readers focus only on inspirational “first women” astronauts—Sally Ride, Mae Jemison (African American), Ellen Ochoa (Hispanic), Kalpana Chawla (Indian American), and Eileen Collins (shuttle pilot and commander)—whose stories can be found in multiple versions, and the few adult books on women in space are selective. Most of the women have not received such literary attention and thus are not as well known. I am hopeful that more women astronauts will publish memoirs and that other authors will produce biographies as masterful as Lynn Sherr’s Sally Ride: America’s First Woman in Space or as intimate as Jean-Pierre Harrison’s memoir of his wife, The Edge of Time: The Authoritative Biography of Kalpana Chawla. Each woman has a distinctive story based on her own journey to becoming an astronaut, the experiences she had on Earth and in space, and how she has lived her life after being an active-duty astronaut. Each has wisdom to share, not to mention humor, hope, insight, and a few regrets. We would be fortunate to have more of their stories told in their own words.

  America’s women astronauts may not agree with everything I have written in this book, but I discussed its themes and perspectives with many of them, and they offered facts, clarifications, anecdotes, suggestions, and constructive criticism, for which I am grateful. Crafting this examination of the context for their journeys to NASA and then into space and on to other ventures, I aimed to be fair and accurate, to cast more than a superficial glow on these highly accomplished women, and to present some of the substance that makes them exceptional. I also address some of their difficulties along the way because, despite their accolades, they too are normal beings whose lives include such moments. For all their achievements, they are in some ways ordinary women who excel in extraordinary circumstances, and they have much in common with other women. My goal is a respectful consideration of who they are, what they do, and their place in space history and our nation’s history.

  Several years ago, in a conversation with space shuttle pilot and commander astronaut Pamela Melroy, I remarked on my admiration for the women who have become America’s astronauts. I mused that with my bent toward history and literature, I would never have met the science and math requirements to become an engineer or qualify as an astronaut. Her generous reply took me by surprise: “Ah, but we haven’t done what you can do.” It was a gratifying reminder that we all have our abilities and roles. I hope that this book rewards her gracious acknowledgment of those who study and present spaceflight without having left Earth. We are participating in exploration, too, but with different tools and talents.

  INTRODUCTION

  Twenty-four women gathered at sunset at a lakeside restaurant, atmospheric and sedate
enough for special occasions. From the shady terrace of Villa Capri in Seabrook, Texas, the landscaped lawn spread to the quiet waterfront. Nothing in their demeanor or attire betrayed the women’s identities as they mingled outdoors. They shared warm greetings and hugs as a sisterhood of friends and colleagues coming together to remember one of their own.

  They were astronauts.

  It was September 17, 2012, and the next morning they would join in a NASA ritual—planting a live oak tree and laying red roses in the memorial grove on the nearby Johnson Space Center (JSC) campus. News of Sally Ride’s death at her home in California in July had caught this group by surprise. No one knew she had been fighting cancer. NASA and the nation had already mourned the passing of America’s first woman in space. The evening would be the group’s time of remembrance. Tomorrow her tree would start to grow beside those of other legends whose time on Earth and in space had passed.

  The NASA Astronaut Office had tapped Anna Fisher to make arrangements for the ceremony. She was the only active astronaut left who had worked with Sally as classmates back in 1978 when the first six women were newcomers to the astronaut corps. She and Cady Coleman, a younger astronaut inspired by Sally, arranged for this all-woman get-together on the eve of the ceremony as a gesture of hospitality to Sally’s sister, Karen “Bear” Ride; her spouse, Susan Craig; and her adult son and daughter, who had come from California for the tree planting. Rhea Seddon had flown in from her home in Tennessee, and newly retired Shannon Lucid was there, both of them also Sally’s classmates. Carolyn Huntoon attended, the only woman to serve on the Astronaut Selection Board for the first recruitments of shuttle astronauts, who advised and counseled the women astronauts about settling into their new roles in NASA’s traditionally masculine, quasi-military culture. A Russian cosmonaut training at JSC, Yelena Serova, also came to pay her respects.[1]

  The group moved into a private dining room and took seats around a single, large table. Three generations of women astronauts sat at the table: those who started flying in the 1980s, those who came in the 1990s, and the newest ones arriving in the 2000s. As dinner progressed, they took turns sharing anecdotes about Sally Ride and her significance to them. At least one woman from all of the astronaut classes of 1978 to 2009—except 1987—was present and spoke. Some of their remarks about Sally were affectionately humorous; all were affirming. The younger women were incredulous about what it was like for the first cohort, and the older ones were touched to hear how important they and Sally were as inspiring role models who had shown the younger ones that aiming for spaceflight was an attainable goal. There was a keen sense that the first ones had cleared the way for the next generations of women to become astronauts.

  Remembering Sally Ride, September 17, 2012: (front, from left) Carolyn Huntoon, Ellen Baker, Mary Cleave, Rhea Seddon, Anna Fisher, Shannon Lucid, Ellen Ochoa, Sandy Magnus; (rear, from left) Jeanette Epps, Mary Ellen Weber, Marsha Ivins, Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Bonnie Dunbar, Tammy Jernigan, Cady Coleman, Janet Kavandi, Serena Auñón-Chancellor, Kate Rubins, Stephanie Wilson, Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, Megan McArthur, Karen Nyberg, Lisa Nowak. Photo by Whit Scott, courtesy Ellen Ochoa

  Indeed, Sally’s peers were especially struck by the passage of time. Sally was already a legend when some of the then-current astronauts were children. The youngest among them was born in 1978, after which women astronauts were a reality. Three of the astronauts present were the fiftieth, fifty-first, and fifty-third women in space, and others not there would be flying soon. The women gathered there reflected on the scope of their presence in the astronaut corps and spaceflight. They had a history and legacy. In the press of relentlessly intense work, it hadn’t jointly dawned on them that so many American women had now flown and accomplished so much in space. They saw in one another the lineage from the first to the latest women astronauts and their union in something grand and significant. They had proved that women belong in space.

  As of the end of 2024, forty-six years since the first ones arrived in the class of 1978, US women astronauts numbered sixty-one in all, with twenty-three then active in NASA management or ready for flight assignments. The youngest among them were born about thirty years after the first six women who became astronauts. Most of the eldest are now retired but actively engaged in post-NASA pursuits—traveling for public appearances and consulting, teaching, writing books, working as executives in the aerospace industry, serving on boards—and some are enjoying life with grandchildren. They remain role models. The cycle of life so familiar to women everywhere plays out even in spaceflight, as each generation yields to the next.

  People born and living about the same time are thought of as members of a generation. A social generation is typically considered to be a span of fifteen to twenty years, in contrast to a familial generation of twenty-five to thirty years. Neither term has an exact scientific definition, but they are useful popular concepts for organizing time and interpreting change.[2] Social generation is a broad term that embraces not just ages of a cohort but also the social environment in which they grew from childhood into adults, such as Baby Boomers, Generation X, or Millennials. People within a social generation are thought to share certain attitudes, values, and tastes arising from their shared history as youth. We can thus posit three generations of astronauts, each influenced by a changing social milieu. They are somewhat arbitrary and imprecise, but still illustrative.

  The first generation of America’s women astronauts was selected from 1978 through 1990 specifically to integrate the astronaut corps and to fly on the space shuttle. All were born before 1960, grew up in the 1950s, and came of age during the 1960s and 1970s. Women’s educational and professional opportunities were limited in their youth, yet they had ambitious goals for their adult life and set out to attain them, starting with college and postgraduate education. They were on the cusp of societal changes toward greater equality of the sexes but young enough to have met some resistance in places where women were uncommon. They had to prove themselves to earn acceptance. Let’s call them the Trailblazers.

  The next generation was selected from 1992 through 2000 as NASA was both operating the space shuttle, planning the International Space Station, and beginning to assemble and use it. Most of this group flew on the shuttle’s regular missions and those to the space station. Most of these new astronauts were born in the 1960s, finished high school and college in the 1980s, and started launching their careers in military or civilian work after women began to be visible as astronauts. The world of their youth was transformed by changing attitudes and opportunities brought about by the civil rights and women’s rights movements. Doors of opportunity were opening, they were entitled to enter, and thus they were more readily welcomed wherever they headed. Let’s call them the Inspired.

  The 2004 class was a bridge to the third generation selected from 2009 through 2021 and possibly beyond. Like the 2000 class, the 2004 class would fly on the last shuttle missions, complete building the space station, and rotate on and off the station as residents. The final space shuttle missions flew in 2011, after which that transportation system was retired and the shuttle program ended. Born in the late 1970s through 1980s, the third-generation astronauts were chosen to become the post-shuttle astronaut corps. They would have stints on the International Space Station and become the crews of the new NASA and commercial spacecraft to follow the shuttle. In the world of their youth, women could aspire to be anything—fighter pilots and commanders of space missions, heads of large companies and federal agencies, candidates for the highest political offices, and successful professionals in any field. They were able to prepare to be astronauts more extensively than their predecessors and entered the astronaut corps with formidable resumes. Let’s call them the Empowered.

  In 2020, as plans further crystallized, NASA designated a group of eighteen astronauts as “the Artemis generation” to train for missions to the Moon. This group of nine women and nine men was drawn primarily from the 2013 and 2017 classes, with a few from 2009, 2004, and even 1996. By 2024, the Artemis team expanded to include all forty-seven active-duty astronauts, including those selected in 2021, with a total of twenty women. They ranged in age from early thirties to late fifties, and most had already flown one to three missions in low-Earth orbit. Several were veteran spacewalkers. Assuming new recruitments in the coming years, this chronology-spanning Artemis group may become a larger fourth astronaut generation, possibly to be followed by a future Mars generation.[3]