Word: astronaut
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...Soviets launched a woman cosmonaut precisely 20 years ago, though a second did not follow until last summer (see box). "It's too bad," scowls Ride, "that society isn't to the point yet where the country could just send up a woman astronaut and nobody would think twice about...
...spite of encouragement from Billie Jean King, Ride decided to quit tennis and go on to full-time graduate studies in astrophysics at Stanford. By 1978 she had a doctorate but no job. When NASA advertised for the first time in ten years for astronaut-scientists, she became one of 8,370 applicants. After grueling physical and mental examinations, including a session with two NASA psychiatrists who tried to crack her now celebrated composure, Ride was one of 35 candidates picked, six of them women. The other female "Ascans" (NASA slang for astronaut candidates) were equally talented: Judith Resnik...
...other women demonstrated their mettle-actually she had spent many hours in graduate school at computer terminals-Bean had a change of heart. The women, he finally agreed, performed as well as the men. In 1980, encouraged by the female experience, NASA added two more women to the astronaut corps...
...some sensible accommodation was made to cope with the differences between the sexes. To adapt to shorter limbs (Ride is 5 ft. 5 in.), shuttle seats were built so that they could slide like those in a car. Optional grooming aids were added to the personal kits of the astronauts (though Ride pointedly has not said whether she will wear lipstick or powder for the inevitable orbital TV shows). Included as well are tampons, linked together lest one drift off when the box is opened. The shuttle's single privy was already designed with women in mind. Instead...
Sally Ride, 32, astronaut set to be the first U.S. woman in space on the second voyage of the shuttle Challenger, asked at a press conference if she will weep in tough situations: "Why doesn't anyone ask Rick [Hauck, her fellow astronaut] those questions...