Blog, vintage space, hosted by Discover Magazine which is also a Youtube Channel with over 325,000 subscribers. She is a regular writer for discovery seeker and has hosted numerous space and science related shows. Among them, nasas unexplained files but she gives talk about spaceflights all around the u. S. And america. Please give a warm welcome to amy teitel. [applause] guest bring it down to short level. [laughter] good morning everyone and thank you for coming out to listen to me talk first thing in the morning for some including myself. Something weird about hearing your bio read like that. I will try to live up to everything that was just intensely said about me. So, i want to start with a brief conversation of who has heard of the socalled mure andry trent mercury 13 . Oh theres a decent number of hands, maybe 15 or 20, sometimes called the first lady astronaut training. Sorry, theres no way to print my talks im gonna read this bit off my phone. [laughter] if you dont know the story of the socalled mercury 13 i will explain the air codes later dont worry. Its basically a story of every thing is in air quotes now. Its a 13 women who train for spaceflight in the 1960s and took on nasa with writing the wrong of sexism. Mass at the time did not allow women into the astronaut corps, said they decided they needed to have this change. It was all the way to a house subcommittee hearing and 1962 and spoiler alert, not really a, it didnt work. So these space flight pioneers were astronaut candidates according to nbc in aac secret nasa program according to upi they train first base fight include event mercury equinox according to space. The story that usually told with all of the air quotes, and variably features a hero named derek cobb. Gerry is a young woman she was in her early 30s at the time she was the first woman to take all of the astronaut tests, and kind of the media darling. Shes one that spearheaded it shes been a most familiar with the story. She is the woman right here. And these stories, and variably feature a villain named jackie cochran. This woman right here. Jackie is basically like a disney villain. She swoops down from on high thwarts her wouldbe sisters in this subcommittee hearing, and then goes home to her castle in a forest to confer with her pet raven. Shes basically from the Sleeping Beauty not the Angelina Jolie but the original one. So there has been a lot written about the story. It pops up in the news with some regularity someone finds it a gets all excited. This is appealing feminist story. Its all wrong. [laughter] the more i dug into this the more i really started researching it, thats why there are 70 air quotes because that whole narrative is just not right. I am going to tell you a little bit about the story, the real storyl today. While also walking you through how i came to write this book. I will do this so it is burned into your memory. [laughter] to start off, when i started readingea about the story, i read the feminist when all about gerry taking on nasa come this intrepid warrior. She is a woman in her early 30s in a male dominant field trying to be known for her skill. It hit h home to me in a lot of ways. And it really felt like a great story to tell because who doesnt love giving an unknown figure from history or littleknown figure from history they are due. So as i started researching the story, something bothered me about the characterization of jackie. Why did she come out of her forest castle just until nasa and to Tell Congress that women should not fly in space . No one is that men dictate, no one is that mean without cause. Reading the transcript of the congressional or the subcommittee hearing, gerry is going on and on about women are smaller and lighter. There is Scientific Evidence to support women in space. Women are smaller lighter said less resources less payload, dont forget in the early 60s if you are too heavy for the rocket, the rocket could not get off the ground. Mass is at a premium here. And in this Senate Hearing or this congressional hearing, jackie goes on about just not the right time for women. If the rocket blows up with john glenn on it, its bad. But technology is new if the rocket blows up with a woman on board its because the woman didat something wrong. And that pushes womens progress it back. Started reading this and i thought this villain kind of makes sense. Its dated, its very dated obviously. But for 1962 with a cold work makes a lot of sense. Also, i have always loved Sleeping Beauty and i have that movie on my phone. I wanted to new more about this real life disney villain. Luckily, jackie wrote memoirs. This is the first source i really read about her specifically. And immediately she emerged as this epic ba. Cold notes are the cold notes i still cant get cliff notes, top of mind so cold notes. She was an orphan born into abject poverty in florida she got out to the Beauty Industry she was a hair dresser. She learned to fly in the 1930s and by the end of the decade was winning all kinds of wards, was so0s good was actually led the first ever branch of female pilots flying for the u. S. Military. She ran for congress, she was the first woman to break the sound air, she was friends with multiple president s and saved lbjs life one day, like we do. She and eisenhower were such good friends he wrote one of hisf memoirs at our house and the guest cottage. Its very sad. She ran one of the largest cosmetic companies and the country. It was one of the luxury brands. And it gets better because she married floyd old him a resounding silence of nose. Floyd was one of the ten richest men in the country. He was one of the robber barons he was up with the carnegies vanderbilt, he built america. They are the power couple to end all Power Couples and no one has ever heard of them. We all know memoirs can be selfserving, everyone can tell you that. Jackies memoir is no exception. Soie i was wanted to see if everything she said was true. For the most part, yes. I was able to find a lot of other sources to back up all of her records this tough with the president breaking the sound air she was rented yet your, millie ehrhardt, but it couldnt find anything to back up her orphan story so she readily admitted she made that bit up which i thought was very interesting. So digging into jackies early life was like thein funnest thing in the world. It involves fighting early divorce records with the very excited clerk at the Montgomery County clerksy office. I didnt even know where that was i think was in georgia actually. Now that im here. Everything about jackies adult life as a pilot was right. But her early life turns out to be so much more interesting. I do want to read a very brief excerpt from the book here because its easier to just read this. Instead of trying to encapsulate jackies early life. So the only thing a need to know going into this sheon was not born jackie cochran. In the span of a decade, betsy had been married and divorced, welcomed us on them buried him. She buried her father and her brother. Her sisters and beloved brother joseph were all raising their own families. And the only family betsy had left with her mother which with whom she continued to class. It held nothing but painful memories. So she decided the time to come to make a clean break. One midsummer day in 19209, 23yearold betsy arrived at the train station. Her worldly possessions were packed in suitcases and her life savings was tucked away in her pocketbook. Including the money she gained from selling her beloved ford model t. She bought a ticket and boarded a train heading north. Watching the countryside stream past the window, she decided to reinvent her past. She would tell people that she was an orphan, that pittmans had taken her end but hadad never really cared for her. This would explain her lack of family ties. She would never admit to knowing her biological family and would instead tell people who foster family had been so poor and unloving that she had been forced too leave the house at 11ou years old to find work. She also decided not to ever tell anyone about her marriage and her son. She couldnt bear to erase robert junior entirely. He was her happiest memory. She needed to keep him with her somehow so decided to keep the onlyhi thing left they had shared, a name. She would remain a cochran to keep her little boy live in her heart but she would tell people she had picked the surname at ran it running her finger through phonebook. As the train sped further north she faded into security. When she arrived in new york city, days later she obtained betsy skill of a hairdresser nurse, her obsession with cleanliness nothing else. No one would appellee know betsy pittman, she would know the world with absolutely no ms. Jacqueline cochran. So that is our villain. Dont you want to know so much more about her . [laughter] here is this woman who reinvented herself so completely, but she is so complex. There is so much in her back story, she was 23 by the time all of that happens. Of course shes going to become this fantastic character to dive into and understand. I would say shes real forrest gump. She is involved in every moment of history new every sickle person. But she is not tom hanks, no disrespect to tom hanks, i love tom hanks. She is not really the villain of the story. The story ofto women in space, because of jackie, was everywhere it. It was really her story and everyone else kind of comes into it and gives it that dynamic. Lets look at gerry as the woman who gives her context. I will continue to put this up so it continues to burn into your brain. Gerry was 25 years younger than jackie. She grew up in a very different world for women. Jackie learned to fly and the 1930s when flying was really for the rich. It was rare, it wasnt totally uncommon but it was fairly rare for a woman to fly let alone to be that good. But in the 30s, a pilot was the celebrities to end all celebrities, you have lindberg and ehrhardt, these are still nays that people know even though what they did bys todays standard is still terrifying and amazing, but it is not hotshot fighter pilot. Gerry grew up in a world were postwar, she learned to fly as a teenager because it was accessible to younger girls to learn to fly. In 1950s when she was s an adult, it was still really hard for a woman to make a living as a pilot, but it was possible and she did find a way. She worked in a lot of odd jobs to do it. But it was her passion it was what she felt she was brought on the earth to do. She was a very good pilot, but she was not remarkable in her area the way jackie was remarkable in hers. Then the space age happens, my joke is always that it just kind of ruined everything for everyone in the air by changing the game so completely. Tiny little balls sputnik, change the world. In 1959, nasa was created in 1958. Nasa introduced the world to its first class of astronauts, the mercury seven astronauts. These guys became celebritys overnights, the way pilots were celebrities in the 30s. These were seven men, who had passed they were all military test pilots by design, they had jet test experience, where experimental test pilots had a certain number of hours in the air, height and weight requirements again because if they were over 180 pounds at rockets not getting off the ground. Bad day for everyone. 110 men in the country because only men of the time could qualify as test t pilots. 110 men met the basic requirements they went their extensive personality test, psychological test, basically duly like like you as a human test, and the last the finalists the last 34 went their extensive medical testing. R everyone has seen the right stuff . That scene, i forget the actors name, al sheppard is running down the hall within enema bag at her shirt open, that was very real. I have met one of the mercury asked ross they israel, fun times. So all of this medical testing that we are somewhat familiar with this happened at the clinics Randy Lovelace was one of jackie cochrans oldest friends. B floyd was the chairman of the board of the foundation. This isnt important. The world is introduced to the mercury astronauts when they are the that celebrities of this guy that everybody wants to be an gerry happens to be in the right place at the right time with the right background, the right experience, the right agent sort of the right physical fitness to take the same medical tests. Because randy is curious whether or not a woman would be able to be proved physically as fit. tshe passed, he cant really pass a medical test but she performed adequately enough, that he incorporated her results into a medical paper he gave at a medical conference in the fall of 1960. Now the followed 1960 you have the words woman and asked her not in the same sentence. What you think the press is going to pick up is the story . [laughter]r] the press went nuts the exact same way you have discovery of evidence with water on mars, woman same pass test given to astronaut theres a woman astronaut. The immediate went crazy, and completely came up with this whole thing there is a woman astronaut a woman is going into space nasa trading a woman. It becomes this a media frenzy gerry at the center. And eventually, they no control of one is a very poor sample size. Gerry and randy get more women to do the test and get more data. Jackie isd. Involved, randy asked her to be an advisor the official advisor to this inquiry. There is more data points and more involved. Here is where the story gets really messy. Because that media is saying theres a group of astronaut female astronaut trainees and nasas guinness and the first woman into space. Gerry is running around the country giving tax and shes going to the first f woman astronaut and their 16 women in training. That was not true. Jackie is sitting there like none of this is real at all. And was asking about women in space but no ones telling anything. It becomes a he said she said she said mass. In writing this book it was really hard to figure out what is real and what is not. Here is where archives became my absolute best friend. If you are a nerd archives of the best thing ever. Like i said, jackie was good friends withds president eisenhower. She was also an epic packrat she kept every single scrap of paper that ever crossed herer desk. Its all in the Eisenhower Library. I had so much fun, when you go to the archives they give you a finding guide. Its a list of boxes, whats in that box you canbo pull a box at a time you can only look at so much. The finding guide for jackie is this big. I dont know theres like 60 linear feet of material, it was so good. [laughter] she kept everything, she keptt every letter she kept a carbon copy of every letter she wrote. A copy of every letter she received even copy she cced on copies of letters she has people to say she want to know if they were saying in this whole astronaut business behind widows telling here. So to keep it straight was actually able to see what every single woman is saying it end up getting all the way to nasa it will go all the way to the president. Gerry was sending telegrams to the white house. I was able to find that white house routing slips to say kennedy got this telegram from her did not want to deal with it had nasa answered and dismissed her. All of these Little Details that help me build the story of just how complicated this was and how many people were on wooden lay drawn into this and stayed free. I also found some really will on ebay, which is the best and also worse than, best refining cool stuff for sync your bank account. Including little known memoirs of people had written. Letters that were somehow not filed in national archives. At all help to really clarify the details. In among all of that were transcripts of public talks and articles. I was able to actually compare what jackie was saying versus what gerry was saying. I want to read a quick oh where is this thing, i want to example of just how different all of these opinions were. So this is gerry addressing a crowd at it andd events. Gerry and jackie were co headlining an event. Super fun and i would not have known that except jackie kept her diary in very good order. Women have long contributed to the advancement of science, this was no different she said imploring everyone there to contribute tohe the best of their godgiven abilities. Having been a professional pilot for many years, i feel like i could best contribute to Space Research in the area of astronaut testing and training. To disprove that women have the capabilities of actively participating in place but i have the privilege of undergoing three cases of asked about testing. She did not really. [laughter] she had been appointed a nasa consultant she erroneously told the gathered crowd. But she said i am the most un consulted consulted and any Government Agency today. Im certainly not a feminist nor do ie want to be a space age Harriet Beecher stowe. I certainly do not want to be a heroin or marcher but i would willingly give my life to this purpose and counted a blessing to serve my god and my country to the utmost. With god is my pilot she finished, i hope to make that spaceflight. Applause filled the room. Gerry regained her seat as jackie moved to the podium. The Lovely Foundation for medical research gave the first medical text to the large group of candidates for jackie did not waste any time on preamble paired this unofficial and volunteer medical process through publicity, editorial license and Wishful Thinking became parlayed into the widespread belief theirs and asked her not program for women. It was a a very different version of the same story that the women had just heard from gerry. So it gets really messy and complicated as they go back and forth. There is one other letter i want to reach you b guys really quick. Select a said, this got all the way to a house subcommittee hearing. I got all the way to the subcommittee hearing, even got to the point that gerry and another one of these women pilots, gd heart whos married to senator philip hart, got a meeting with lbj when he was vice president. Like i said jackie saved lbjs life one day. I have never heard of this letter before i found it in the lbj archives or in jackies archives which are so cool by the way its like the handwritten signature of lbj and its not protected. You can pick it up, you can just pick it up. I love history. [laughter] dear jackie, thank you so much for your nice letter and the enclosure. Te it iss always fun to see you had a good time telling gerry cobb in this philip hart about our friendship when they came to see about lady astronauts. It kinda says a lot doesnt it . [laughter] so between all of these letters and even letters from the women that i was able to find, no one agreed on what this quote unquote woman asked her out program was supposed to be. Everybody wanted it to be Something Different largely for selfserving purposes. It became this really interesting thing to try to figuream out what actually happened. Why was this problem it looks like its gonna happen it looks like the women were going to go through some simulation testing and then was canceled but who did it and no one would take responsibility for anything. I managed to check that im not going to give away the actual ending, i did manage to track down so much of exactly where this thread went. Why it became such a big deal, and how it became such an epic mass ofn he said she said she said. The questions i will leave you with in the hopes that you will be curious enough to actually read it was jerrys dream actually realistic . Was jackie purely for indicative where she writes because she had all of the most powerful men and the country in her pocket effectively. I dont want to give away any more w spoilers than that. But i will now open this up for questions. [applause] staying on time. [applause] what started you to become a spaceec third . My life is a space third was reaching a general researching for my second gate project on venus when i was seven. It is awesome but inside out because its so hard and backwards but its right there in the sky that so cool. I dont remember if it happened before after the project that my dad, my dads right there. My dad showed me how to find venus in the night sky and i thought that was so cool. We have this little book and theres a cartoon of two astronauts on the moon. My gazette im from canada, nasa is not everywhere in canada. I went people went to the moon . Why was it not informed . I really wanted to know all about it so i became fascinated with it. The more you look into something as big technologically is going to the moon, the more things you find out and the bigger the answer becomes. This is really for me a facet of space history, even though it is not. It feeds into that because it sheds light on thisig weird story of space history that ive always heard of but never really knew the right answers to. Smack of unit shouted out since her far for the mike. Could you tell us about your writing process . Find of what is a day look like, week look like, how long did this take if you had to get archives. Do they let you take a picture of things . Im trying to imagine you getting all that information and try to get into a narrative. The writing process is a of solitary sitting at my desk with a cat nuzzling my face. True. Writing the proposall for this book was actually took more time than writing the actual book. Largely because i knew the proposal had to be really, for nonfiction you write a proposal and sell that and out the full book. History has an end right . So check almost a year end a half to get the proposal down so it was really solid and my agent, i love her, did not let me go without with anything subpar, while all of that is happening im taking these Research Trips to figure this stuff out. Archives, will for the most part let you take a picture. Thats awesome her tights out there with my phone just flipped, shot, flip shot, shot i took everything because im not going to be discerning. No to get to the point to went to abilene, kansas to the Eisenhower Library and its really hard to get to. So i have to take everything i just pulled random boxes lets take this floyd bock because jackies husband is there too. I found some amazing stuff just by chance. I had it all printed and sat and read it at home. You cant read it when youre actually there so i have five or 6000 pages of archived materials i took pictures of and founds. Not including pictures that i got because jackie kept teverything. I know what she wore two events and stuff. And actually writing it was relatively quick. As a very tight intense somewhat faint painful for months and then editing. And now it is real. [laughter] we now know that children and women are morehi susceptible to the ionizing radiation. The deep space challenge of going to mars is going to result in a significant radiation dose. Theyre sort of a movie afflicted to suggest that maybe you dont take the high school science, or even send a woman to the mars mission. Did you encounter any of that in your research . No, for this book i did not look into any of that. Radiation, at least at this point they knew radiation is going to be a problem going to the moon. That would play into early astronauts selection. Really in the apollo area they say are going so fast in the mission is so short its s not that big of a deal. Radiation, for my understanding is a non physicist, not somebody who works for space agency putting that out there. Radiation is a big problem. No one is going to survive that trip with our Current Technology of Radiation Protection that i know of. Thats the big one. We are talking two years. Two years of radiation exposure is a lot of exposure. Have you talked to any of the current core female astronauts and how they read the o book . What are their reactions . The book isnt actually out yet it comes out on tuesday so no one has read it yet. [laughter] very excited for it to be out. I know a handful of modern astronauts i dont know any of the current core of astronauts actually. Theres a bunch who are on the list. I know enough people at nassau to kind of nudge it in their direction. Im very curious to know what it. Think of but no, no one has read it, no one has n thoughts yet because no ones read it. [laughter] okay thanks. And all of your research, have you come across anything that says women have any particular physical advantages over men for spaceflight . For example ive heard for combat aircraft they can tolerate the high g forces better than men picked ahabs tolerate zero geforce better than men . From what i found the research for this was pretty limited to the medical tests for the mercury astronauts. It was really a superexpensive physical. There is some merit to the ideaea that women who consume fewer resources are more efficient and spaceflight. I am on a platform, but i am 5 feet tall. I can fit in a smaller space, i. E. Less than a guy who is 6foot six. Theres something to be said for the general resources you need for a woman versus a man. Ultimately it comes down to your ability as a human. Not your ability as an eating machine. [laughter] or as it said a Waste Production machine. [laughter] good morning. You talk a lot about the research aspect of this project were there any majorer leads you are not able to track down for validity . See that the major lead i wasnt able to track that was gerry. She is notoriously, she passed away last march. She is always been notoriously reclusive. After this whole thing died down in the mid 60s, she ended up working parttime she flew a lot shed been working largely as a missionary pilot in south america so flying between south america and florida were she was based. She had a foundation and that was most of her work. She lived she was really hard to get to. I have friends who have had phone number is for her and email addresses, and they came with a very strict do not disturb. I did not want to be that person who is hounding her about stuff. I did try to go through more friendly means. By the time i was getting anywhere, she did pass away so i was not able to talk with her. Like so may people she wrote memoirsem and i have her story. Also so many letters she wrote so i was able to do a lot with archive research, even though i was not able to speak with her. And jackie died in 1980. I visited her grave, it did not tell me much. I even went to her old house she lived in california which is not far from where mnl a. Her old house is now a golf course and sheet watch that happen which is quite sad. In preparation for this i actually lookedd on youtube and i saw you many times. Could you tell us a little bit about your vintage blog . Theres over 25000 viewers . Is we were getting the intro i need to update that bio because im hovering at the 330 mark right now. Theres a lot of hovering and plateauing on youtube. Backgroundind of about is i recently ran the vintage space into vintage space to oak me up into more aviation history and unrelated but really could tranquil midcentury stuff. The blog really started as my own experience to try to figure out how to be a Popular Science writer versus an academic writer. I just finished my masters degree really did not love academic life so unceremoniously turn my back on and start a blog because that was a good idea. Within a matter of months i was getting up traction on the blog it was worth sticking it out to. Try this whole writer business thing while also being a personal trainer. Again those two things go handinhand. The worst reality for a writer eis that people dont like to read. People like to watch things theres a Youtube Channel so its most most awkward thing in the world permit first. And gradually kind of got into it in sort of now have settled into a thing for a put up a video on youtube, very irregularly, especially surrounding a book launch. And have a companion blog on the vintage space which is hosted at medium actually. I love having this thing that is totally under my control. Ive been teasing a little book stuff but i didnt article when the cia trained cats as spies. That happens. Can you think of a more 1960s program to send millions of dollars on . Lets trained cats. You know how hard it is to train cats . I got the video my own cat it was really fun. I get to look at all kinds of things that are really t exciting. I mentioned jackie had a cosmetics empire. Theres tons of stuff on that that didnt make it into the book like her cosmetic life other record she did. Rivalries, friendly rivalries of other pilots. Its all really fascinating history theres a lot of stuff that gerry has a great romance in the book. There is some material i discovered more recently that suggest it was kind of a home wrecking situation, potentially. Im looking into that because theres other overlaps with jackie its very interesting and its feeling a little days of our lives right now. [laughter] i will dig in to all of that and kind of explore that on the Youtube Channel because i collect my internet baby, i get to do what i want with it. Not like you can do anything with the baby. [laughter] its my little place for creative freedom, i think this is cool so you are going to learn about it. Try to make it fun, mostly with my cat. Nk [laughter] anyone else . Or should i slink off to the site here . [laughter] whats next . Whats next is for the book to actually be released finally. Its so weird having a book at everyones like houses subscriptions of art you think nonexistent. Next is to just have the book come out and help people like it and it does well. I havent really gotten beyond thatll yet. To be honest. Everything is very much wrapped up in trying to figure this out. Tease it with the Youtube Channel and other things im not sure why canon and cant talk about yet. But theres a lot of ifs and my future right now, and some vacation. At some point there will be a vacation. Smack tells about your education. My background is in history science. I did alldi of my studies and can appear to have a bachelors degreeee with history and science and technology and classics. Because i went to one if not the only school in canada that gives you a history of science degree in the undergraduate level. Thats awesome you can do science without being in a lab. Im not good at that and stop my thing. I love history and science and it was my happy place. After my undergrad i did not know what to do and communication sounded fun in terms of Science Community patient so i did a degree in Corporate Communications and public relations. H which was not for me at all. It just wasnt my jm. So im. Went back and did a masters degree in Science Technology studies so i thought this would be, so in canada t a masters is not terminal you did before your phd. I thought i go back to academia and figure how to do the phd. The masters again was not the right program, not the right school, it which is not the right fit. It kind of soured me on academia just a little bit. I had this idea, i dont want to spend five years writing something huge. Writing a dissertation that five people would read that would meet the needs of those five people and then have to include stuff like historiography. Nobody likes to do that. Id rather spend that time writingin something that more people would read that i would actually enjoy. So my first book come out into thousand 15 its called breaking the chains of gravity. Its a prehistory of nasa on how all of the pieces of the space agency were buried disparate until it all the sudden came together. Is a lot of really interesting research. For me its kind of mirroring the Academic Research i love and my weird love archives. And doing something that feels fun. I didnt love academic writing, and i love being able to write something that feels engaging and feels like youre learning something but its not face smashing on a desk kind of reading. [laughter] some academic papers are very dry. Very clever but sometimes its like gosh could use smaller words for just a minute because i dont your jargon . [laughter] granted nasa is the king and acronyms. I havent dictionary that is this that, not kidding. Anything else . Anyone else . I know we are close on time, so i want to be aware of that. I think we are good . [applause] okay think were good. Thank you. [applause] [applause] so neck some book tv linguist dennis baron looks at pronouns throughout history and today. Then American EnterpriseInstitute Director offers his thoughts on how americans are and rebuild commitment to their communities and institutions. And later, ancestor podcast host addresses the issue of White Supremacy and racial injustice. That all starts now on book tv, on cspan2. [background noises] so good evening, hows everyone doing doing. Great, i am great too. I work with the Public Program team here at the Library Thanks much for coming out tonight for