When Valentina Tereshkova blasted off aboard Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963, she became the first woman to rocket into space. It would be 19 years before another woman got a chance—cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982—followed by American astronaut Sally Ride a year later. And by breaking the stratospheric ceiling, these women forged a path for many female astronauts, cosmonauts, and mission specialists to follow. In Women in Space, author Karen Bush Gibson profiles 23 pioneers, all of whom achieved greatness in orbit. Read about Eileen Collins, the first woman to command the Space Shuttle; Peggy Whitson, who has logged more than a year in orbit aboard the International Space Station; Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space; as well as astronauts from Japan, Canada, Italy, South Korea, France, and more. Learn, too, about the Mercury 13, American women selected by NASA in the late 1950s to train for spaceflight. Though they matched and sometimes surpassed their male counterparts in performance, they were ultimately denied the opportunity to head out to the launching pad. Their story, and the stories of pilots, physicists, and doctors who followed them, demonstrate the vital role women have played in the quest for scientific understanding. Karen Bush Gibson is the author of Women Aviators, Native American History for Kids, and three dozen other books for young readers. She lives in Norman, Oklahoma.

* This is the only book that provides the full story of the role of women in space exploration. * Previously unpublished photographs of various aspects of training and participation in spaceflights are included. * Personal interviews with female cosmonauts and astronauts. * Traces the history of female aviation milestones from the early part of the 20th Century to the current space programme.

space program and the rise of the women's movement in America.

From the creation of the Manned Spacecraft Center to the launching of the International Space Station and beyond, Making Space for Women explores how careers for women at Johnson Space Center have changed over the past fifty years as the workforce became more diverse and fields once closed to women--the astronaut corps and flight control--began to open. Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal has selected twenty-one interviews conducted for the NASA Oral History Projects, including those with astronauts, mathematicians, engineers, secretaries, scientists, trainers, managers, and more. The women featured not only discuss leadership, teamwork, and the experiences of being "the first," but reveal how the role of the working woman in a predominantly white, male, technical agency has evolved. The narratives highlight the societal and cultural changes these women witnessed and the lessons they learned as they pursued different career paths. Among those included are Joan E. Higginbotham, mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery; Natalie V. Saiz, first female director of the Human Resource Office; Kathryn Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space; Estella Hernández Gillette, the deputy director of the center's External Relations Office; and Carolyn Huntoon, the first woman director of the Johnson Space Center. Making Space for Women offers a unique view of the history of human spaceflight while also providing a broader understanding of changes in American culture, society, industry, and life for women in the space program. The women featured in this book demonstrate that there are no boundaries or limits to a career at NASA for those who choose to seize the opportunity.

Few books are relating the story of women in astronautics, that one concerns all women and the special place they had in the history of space exploration.

Filled with beautiful full-color illustrations, a groundbreaking compendium honoring the amazing true stories of fifty inspirational women who helped fuel some of the greatest achievements in space exploration from the nineteenth century to today—including Hidden Figure’s Mary Jackson and Katherine Johnson as well as former NASA Chief Astronaut Peggy Whitson, the record-holding American biochemistry researcher who has spent the most cumulative time in space. When Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder of the lunar module, Eagle, he famously spoke of “one small step for man.” But Armstrong would not have reached the moon without the help of women. Today, females across the earth and above it—astronauts and mathematicians, engineers and physicists, test pilots and aerospace psychophysiologists—are pushing the boundaries of human knowledge, helping us to understand the universe and our place in it. Galaxy Girls celebrates more than four dozen extraordinary women from around the globe whose contributions have been fundamental to the story of humankind’s quest to reach the stars. From Ada Lovelace in the nineteenth century to the “colored computers” behind the Apollo missions, from the astronauts breaking records on the International Space Station to the scientific pioneers blazing the way to Mars, Galaxy Girls goes boldly where few books have gone before, celebrating this band of heroic sisters and their remarkable and often little known scientific achievements. Written by Libby Jackson, a leading British expert in human space flight, and illustrated with striking artwork from the students of London College of Communication, Galaxy Girls will fire the imaginations of trailblazers of all ages.

Spaceflight historian Amy Shira Teitel tells the riveting story of the female pilots who each dreamed of being the first American woman in space. When the space age dawned in the late 1950s, Jackie Cochran held more propeller and jet flying records than any pilot of the twentieth century—man or woman. She had led the Women's Auxiliary Service Pilots during the Second World War, was the first woman to break the sound barrier, ran her own luxury cosmetics company, and counted multiple presidents among her personal friends. She was more qualified than any woman in the world to make the leap from atmosphere to orbit. Yet it was Jerrie Cobb, twenty-five years Jackie's junior and a record-holding pilot in her own right, who finagled her way into taking the same medical tests as the Mercury astronauts. The prospect of flying in space quickly became her obsession. While the American and international media spun the shocking story of a "woman astronaut" program, Jackie and Jerrie struggled to gain control of the narrative, each hoping to turn the rumored program into their own ideal reality—an issue that ultimately went all the way to Congress. This dual biography of audacious trailblazers Jackie Cochran and Jerrie Cobb presents these fascinating and fearless women in all their glory and grit, using their stories as guides through the shifting social, political, and technical landscape of the time.

There are all kinds of cool careers in space exploration! Astronauts are the superstars of space, but there are thousands of other women and men behind the scenes who make space exploration possible. This book is for girls, young women, and anyone else interested in learning about exciting careers in space exploration. Take a ride with Laura S Woodmansee and find out what it's like to be a woman of space. Would you like to know what it's like to be a space scientist searching for life beyond Earth? An engineer designing a spacecraft to send to Mars? Or an artist who creates beautiful space paintings and illustrations? Find out about these careers and more. You can be an accountant, a security officer, a pilot, a doctor, a biologist, a mission control worker, outreach educator, a teacher, a science writer, or anything else. They are all needed in space exploration. You don't have to be an astronaut to work in space. You can do anything you want! Read about how you can get involved in space exploration today. Join the club of cool space explorers who love what they are doing and wouldn't trade their career for a million pounds! For the next generation of explorers, this book is more than just career advice. It is packed with interesting stories from women all over the planet who are doing what they love! The CD-ROM features: Exclusive video interviews with Mars Pathfinder Engineer Donna Shirley, Astro-Mom Lori Garver, and Aerospace Engineer Leslie Wickman; Listen to the music of the galaxies: an exclusive audio interview with Astrophysicist & Celestial Musician Fiorella Terenzi; "Women in Science: Mentors at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab" (NASA video); Brochures on various space careers (Adobe Acrobat format).

This interdisciplinary collection addresses the location of women and their bequests within the single most important public and social space in pre-Reformation Europe: the Roman Catholic Church. This innovative focus brings attention to gender and space as experienced in the medieval parish as well as in monastic and cathedral space. Through provocative handling of historical content and theory, the contributors explore strategies of exclusion and of inclusion and note patterns of later writers who neglect or rewrite records of female presence. Essays on the York religious cycle, the chronicle of the monastery at Ely, and The Book of Margery Kempe explore how medieval writers used texts as fictive spaces on which to graft responses to the gendered uses of real church buildings. These text-based essays are juxtaposed with tightly focused archival research in art history and history on Florentine patronage and English parish seating, as well as with more broadly synthetic studies on access of women to shrines and on gendered left-right placement in ritual art.