'On a Mission' highlights women in space

To help close out Women’s History Month, the Waseca LeSueur Library system gave an online interview for the book, “On a Mission: The History of US Women Astronauts” with Smithsonian Curator Emerita Valerie Neal on Thursday, April 2. The interview was hosted by podcaster and librarian Brandon Adler.

 

Neal began with the observation, “I’m here today to talk about US women astronauts. I want to say in advance that women astronauts’ stories are less well known than men’s. I’m not meaning to be disrespectful to men at all. In fact, women astronauts are very insistent that they be known simply as ‘astronauts.’ Because they were never separate, they were always in the mix with men. The job was the same regardless if they were a man or a woman.”

 

Neal’s presentation provided information including: There were no women astronauts until 1978.  Out of 287 astronauts, 61 have been women, with 6 additional women currently in training.  The first time there were four women in space was in 2010, on the International Space Station.

 

Said Neal, “There were engineering schools that wouldn’t admit women because they thought the curriculum was too tough and they thought the women would drop out or get married or they would never become engineers. There were beliefs about women’s suitability about doing anything dangerous or risky. That women were to be protected and there was a gallantry in that, but it was also limiting.”

 

But as time progressed and technology advanced, more options for women became available, continued Neal, “The space shuttle was important because it was a larger spacecraft that could accommodate more people onboard than the Mercury, Apollo and Gemini spacecraft that could only carry 1, 2 or 3 people, always men, and it was a tight capsule where people were in each other’s presence all the time. They sat shoulder to shoulder in the seats; they didn’t have much room outside the seats. They did everything together, they slept together, ate together, they went to the restroom together, there was no privacy at all in those capsules. So, no one could imagine a woman being in there with them.”

 

Besides her own book, Valerie Neal also recommended “Nobody’s Girl” by Virginia Giuffre, which she said she read because “I kept hearing about the Epstein stuff because it’s always in the news, so I thought I should be better informed.” 

  

Valerie Neal is a space historian and former curator at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. Before joining the Museum, she was a writer and editor for some 25 NASA publications on Space Shuttle and Spacelab missions, the Hubble Space Telescope and other Great Observatories, space science, and NASA History. She participated in underwater astronaut training in Alabama and mission support in Houston for four space shuttle missions. She has taught American Studies and writing courses at a number of universities. Valerie Neal holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in American Studies and a B.A. degree in English and History.