BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 93

  Elizabeth Howell, “Splashdown Practice for Artemis 2 Moon Mission ‘an Incredible Experience,’ New NASA Astronaut Says,” Space.com, March 13, 2024, https://www.space.com/artemis-2-moon-mission-splashdown-practice-christina-birch-astronaut-interview.splashdown.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 94

  Sandi Miller and Mit Department of Physics, “NASA’s 10-Member Astronaut Candidate Class of 2021 Includes 3 MIT Alumni,” SciTechDaily (blog), December 9, 2021, https://scitechdaily.com/nasa-10-member-astronaut-candidate-class-of-2021-includes-3-mit-alumni/.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 95

  “Deniz Burnham and Flying EVERYTHING,” YouTube, December 5, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79s1YrxEnhE.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 96

  “Profiles in Professionalism: Lt. Deniz Burnham,” January 20, 2022, https://www.navyreserve.navy.mil/News/Article-View-News/Article/2905528/profiles-in-professionalism-lt-deniz-burnham/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.navyreserve.navy.mil%2FNews%2FArticle-View-News%2FArticle%2F2905528%2Fprofiles-in-professionalism-lt-deniz-burnham%2F.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 97

  Katherine Connor, “Engineering Alumna Becomes Newest NASA Astronaut, Deniz Burnham,” University of California San Diego, March 19, 2024, https://today.ucsd.edu/story/engineering-alumna-becomes-newest-nasa-astronaut.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 98

  “Faces of NPS: Lt. Cmdr. Jessica Wittner,” n.d., https://www.npsfoundation.org//faces-of-nps/lt-cmdr-jessica-wittner; Fox Weather, “From Navy to NASA: Jessica Wittner ‘Honored’ by New Endeavor,” https://www.foxweather.com/watch/play-55713b7f0000f48.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 99

  Nadjedja, “A Whole New World for Jessica,” Caves & Pangaea (blog), September 29, 2023, https://blogs.esa.int/caves/2023/09/29/a-whole-new-world-for-jessica/; “AME Alum and Astronaut Awaits Her First Mission: Jessica Wittner,” University of Arizona, March 8, 2024, https://news.engineering.arizona.edu/news/ame-alum-and-astronaut-awaits-her-first-mission.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 100

  Mike Wall, “Diversity Will Be Key to Artemis Moon-to-Mars Push, NASA Officials Say,” Space.com, April 21, 2023, https://www.space.com/artemis-moon-mars-push-diversity-key.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 101

  NASA News Release 20-128, “NASA Names Artemis Team of Astronauts Eligible for Early Moon Missions,” December 9, 2020, https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-names-artemis-team-of-astronauts-eligible-for-early-moon-missions/; “Meet the Artemis Team of NASA Astronauts Who Have a Chance to Walk on the Moon,” CBS News, http://www.cbs.com/playlist?list=PL2aBZuCeDwlQqwFjezU4wJMqK11qpNpR-; White House, “Remarks by Vice President Pence at the 8th Meeting of the National Space Council,” December 9, 2020, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-vice-president-pence-8th-meeting-national-space-council-cape-canaveral-fl/.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 102

  Elizabeth Howell, “NASA Opens up Artemis Moon Missions to All Astronauts,” Space.com, August 18, 2022, https://www.space.com/nasa-artemis-moon-missions-open-all-astronauts. Chief of the Astronaut Office Reid Wiseman made the announcement during a media briefing: “NASA Briefing on Artemis Mission to the Moon,” C-SPAN, August 5, 2022, https://www.c-span.org/video/?522191-1/nasa-briefing-artemis-mission-moon.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 103

  NASA News Release 24-038, “NASA Opens Astronaut Applications as Newest Class Graduates,” March 5, 2024, https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-opens-astronaut-applications-as-newest-class-graduates/.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 104

  Tony Ho Tran, “Why Hasn’t NASA Hired More Black and Brown Astronauts?,” Futurism, March 24, 2022, https://futurism.com/nasa-black-brown-astronauts.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 105

  Chapter 5

  David J. Shayler and Colin Burgess include a list of myriad technical assignments for the 1978 class in NASA’s First Space Shuttle Astronaut Selection: Redefining the Right Stuff (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International, 2020), 198–200. These assignments immediately followed completion of the one-year-long basic training. A list for the most recent astronauts would look equally busy, although on different tasks.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1

  Rhea Seddon, Go for Orbit: One of America’s First Women Astronauts Finds Her Space (Murfreesboro, TN: Your Space Press, 2015), 338.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2

  Margaret Rhea Seddon, Johnson Space Center (JSC) Oral History Project interview, May 20, 2010.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3

  Kathryn D. Sullivan, Johnson Space Center (JSC) Oral History Project interview, May 10, 2007.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4

  Seddon, Go for Orbit, 341–45.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5

  Seddon, JSC interview.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6

  Anna Fisher interview with author, August 8, 2023.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7

  Janet Kavandi interview with author, April 20, 2023.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8

  Peggy Whitson, Johnson Space Center (JSC) Oral History Project interview, October 7, 2015.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9

  NASA News Release, “NASA Assigns Crew for Final Scheduled Space Shuttle Mission,” September 18, 2009.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10

  Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal, ed., Making Space for Women: Stories from Trailblazing Women of NASA’s Johnson Space Center (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2022), 349–60.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11

  Ibid.; National Research Council, Preparing for the High Frontier: The Role and Training of NASA Astronauts in the Post-Space Shuttle Era (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2011).

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12

  Seddon, Go for Orbit, 395–404.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13

  David J. Shayler and Ian Moule, Women in Space: Following Valentina (Chichester, UK: Springer, 2005), 222–23.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14

  Mary L. Cleave, NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Oral History Project interview, March 5, 2002.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15

  Kathy Sullivan, “Waking up with Robin Williams,” Kathy Sullivan Explores, March 2, 2022, https://www.kathysullivanexplores.com/podcast/tag/Memorable%20Moments. See video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7WJtQYU8i4.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16

  Kathy Thornton interview with author, March 23, 2023.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17

  Anna Fisher, NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Oral History Project interview, May 3, 2011; “No Room for Failure,” The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi, Winter 2023, 10–14.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18

  Sullivan, JSC interview.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 19

  Marsha Ivins correspondence with author, July 5, 2023.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 20

  Pamela A. Melroy, NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Oral History Project interview, November 16, 2011.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 21

  Fisher, JSC interview.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 22

  Shannon Lucid, Tumbleweed: Six Months Living on Mir (Privately published, 2020). Jerry Linenger also has written about his experiences in Russia and on Mir.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 23

  Seddon, Go for Orbit, 153.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 24

  Cleave, JSC interview.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 25

  Sullivan, JSC interview.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 26

  Kathy Sullivan, Handprints on Hubble: An Astronaut’s Story of Invention (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2019), 32–34.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 27

  NASA News Release, “NASA Administrator Names Whitson First NASA ISS Science Officer,” September 16, 2002, https://www3.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2002/02-175.txt.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 28

  Comments in interviews with author in February–September 2023. For a thoughtful perspective on leadership styles, see Melroy, JSC interview.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 29

  “NEEMO—NASA,” https://www.nasa.gov/mission/neemo/; “About NEEMO (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations)—NASA,” June 24, 2015, https://www.nasa.gov/missions/analog-field-testing/neemo/about-neemo-nasa-extreme-environment-mission-operations/.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 30

  NEEMO participants include Sunita Williams, Jessica Meir, Cady Coleman, Nicole Stott, Karen Nyberg, Serena Auñon, Kate Rubins, Jeanette Epps, and Jessica Watkins. Serving as NEEMO mission commanders were Peggy Whitson, Sandra Magnus, Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper, Shannon Walker, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, and Megan McArthur.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 31

  “NEEMO 12 Mission Journal, Day3,” nasa.gov/mission_pages/NEEMO/NEEMO12/mission_journal_3.html; “Day 4,” nasa.gov/mission_pages/NEEMO/NEEMO12/mission_journal_4.html.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 32

  Cleave, JSC interview.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 33

  Whitson, JSC interview.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 34

  Seddon, Go for Orbit, 400–404; Sullivan, Handprints on Hubble, 195–98; Cady Coleman, Sharing Space: An Astronaut’s Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change (New York: Penguin Random House, 2024), 43–51, 127–33.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 35

  Whitson, JSC interview.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 36

  Ibid.; Sullivan, JSC interview; Sullivan, Handprints on Hubble, 210–18.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 37

  Whitson, JSC interview.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 38

  Bonnie Dunbar, NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Oral History Project interview, June 16, 1998.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 39

  Wendy Lawrence, NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Oral History Project interview, July 28, 1998.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 40

  Lucid, Tumbleweed.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 41

  Seddon, JSC interview.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 42

  Whitson, JSC interview.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 43

  Seddon, JSC interview, May 21, 2010.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 44

  Margaret Rhea Seddon, interview with author, February 28, 2023.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 45

  “NASA Administrator Names Whitson.”

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 46

  Shayler and Moule, Women in Space, 485.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 47

  Marsha Ivins, interview with author, March 18, 2023.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 48

  Seddon, JSC interview.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 49

  Sullivan, JSC interview; “Astronaut Judy Resnik Interview 9th April 1981,” YouTube, July 25, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaafRyuwA8w.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 50

  Cleave, JSC interview.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 51

  Chapter 6

  Author’s interviews with thirty former US women astronauts conducted February–September 2023.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1

  David Shayler and Colin Burgess, NASA’s Scientist-Astronauts (Chichester, UK: Springer-Praxis, 2007). The men who resigned before flying in space were Duane Graveline (1965), Brian O’Leary (1968), John Llewellyn (1968), Curtis Michel (1969), Philip Chapman (1972), Donald Holmquest (1973), and Robb Kulin (2018). Women who left the astronaut corps did so only after one or more flights to take other jobs, focus on family life, or retire.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 2

  Smith L. Johnston et al., “Astronaut Medical Selection during the Shuttle Era: 1981–2011,” Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 85, no. 8 (August 2014): 824–25; NASA Office of the Chief Health and Medical Officer, “NASA Astronaut Medical Standards, Selection and Annual Recertification, OCHMO-STD-100.1A,” May 10, 2021, https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ochmo-std-100.1a.pdf?emrc=497c02.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3

  Ibid.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 4

  David E. Longnecker, Institute of Medicine, et al., Review of NASA’s Longitudinal Study of Astronaut Health (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2004).

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5

  Richard S. Johnston and Lawrence F. Dietlein, “Biomedical Results from Skylab,” January 1, 1977, https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19770026836.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 6

  Arnauld E. Nicogossian and James F. Parker, Space Physiology and Medicine, NASA SP 447 (Washington, D.C: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Scientific and Technical Information Branch, 1982); Arnauld E. Nicogossian, Carolyn Leach Huntoon, et al., eds., Space Physiology and Medicine, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Lea & Febiger, 1989); Arnauld E. Nicogossian, Carolyn Leach Huntoon, and Sam L. Pool, eds., Space Physiology and Medicine, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia: Lea & Fibiger, 1994); Arnauld E. Nicogossian, Richard S. Williams, et al., eds., Space Physiology and Medicine: From Evidence to Practice, 4th ed. (New York: Springer, 2016).

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 7

  Michael R. Barratt and Sam L. Pool, eds., Principles of Clinical Medicine for Space Flight (New York: Springer, 2008); Michael R. Barratt, Ellen S. Baker, and Sam L. Pool, Principles of Clinical Medicine for Space Flight, 2nd ed. (New York: Springer, 2019), xi and 395.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 8

  Longnecker et al., Review of NASA’s Longitudinal Study of Astronaut Health.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 9

  A review of cardiovascular data through 2016 concluded that astronauts exposed to spaceflight had no increased risk of mortality by cardiovascular disease compared to a well-matched cohort, although there was evidence of increased incidences. Jacqueline Charvat et al., “Long-Term Cardiovascular Risk in Astronauts,” Mayo Clinic Proceedings 97, no. 7 (July 2022): 1237–46.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 10

  Nicogossian et al., Space Physiology and Medicine, 4th ed., 108, 214–16.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 11

  National Academies of Science, Space Radiation and Astronaut Health: Managing and Communicating Cancer Risks (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2021). No author is listed; it was a consensus report by several committees. See https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/26155/space-radiation-and-astronaut-health-managing-and-communicating-cancer-risks.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12

  Francine E. Garrett-Bakelman et al., “The NASA Twins Study: A Multidimensional Analysis of a Year-Long Human Spaceflight,” Science 364, no. 6436 (April 12, 2019): 144.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13

  Patricia A. Santy, “Women in Space: A Medical Perspective,” Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association 39, no. 1 (January 1984): 13–17.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14

  Amy E. Foster, Integrating Women into the Astronaut Corps: Politics and Logistics at NASA, 1972–2004 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), ch. 7. Astronauts Rhea Seddon and Kathryn Sullivan also commented on this in their oral histories: Don’t assume something will be a problem unless it becomes an actual problem.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15

  Ibid., 118–27.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16

  Terminology evolved from “sex-related differences” to “sex and gender differences” or “gender differences,” although physiological research is about biological male and female sexes rather than social identity genders. The term “gender” may be more apt in behavioral health than physiological health research, but “gender” has become the common term in contemporary biomedical studies.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17

  Rhea Seddon et al., “Gender-Related Issues in Space Flight Research and Health Care Workshop Report,” National Space Biomedical Research Institute, September 30, 1999.

  BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18

  Foster, Integrating Women into the Astronaut Corps, ch. 7; David Shayler and Ian A. Moule, Women in Space: Following Valentina (Chichester, UK: Springer-Praxis, 2005), 285–89.