In 1960 a pilot with more than 10,000 flight hours and multiple world records scored in the top two percent of astronaut candidates and was still disqualified. This episode follows Geraldine Jerry Cobb from a private clinic in Albuquerque, where Dr. William Randolph Lovelace II ran her through the same three-phase physical testing used on the male Mercury astronauts, to her role recruiting a group of 13 women pilots who became known as the Mercury 13. We describe the tests themselves, from swallowed rubber tubes to ice water injected into the ear canal, and the isolation of undergoing them without a peer group.

We then examine how the requirement for military jet test pilot experience functioned as a ban on women who were legally barred from military flight schools, the abrupt telegram cancellation of advanced testing at Pensacola, and the  ...