The Glass Stratosphere

Overheard at National Geographic

National Geographic

Science, Society & Culture

4.5 • 10.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2019

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if women had been among the first to head to the moon? A NASA physician thought that wasn't such a far fetched idea back in the 1960s. He developed the physical and psychological tests used to select NASA's first male astronauts, and ran those same test on women, who thought their performance punched their ticket to the moon. We'll hear about what happened from two of the women involved. For more information on this episode visit nationalgeographic.com/overheard Want More? Read why some scientists think the future of spaceflight should be female. Also Explore: Meet the people who got us to space and the pioneers pushing us farther. Explore the never-used Soviet space shuttles rusting in a hangar in Kazakhstan. See Nat Geo editors' favorite space photos. If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	First of all, actually, do you mind telling me how old you are?
0:02.9	I'm 85 years old.
0:05.4	85 years old.
0:06.9	Young.
0:08.3	Correction. I'm 85 years young.
0:13.7	So are you still fly?
0:15.2	Are you still piloting plans?
0:16.8	Yes, I fly with a friend of mine very often now and I'm all used to all the newest equipment.
0:23.5	When I look at now and see a beautiful blue sky, I want to be up there.
0:29.6	Sarah Ratley has spent a lot of her life pointed in one direction up and at times she's tried to go even
0:37.1	further. I wanted to find out new horizons. What is it in Star Trek to go where no man has gone before?
0:45.6	We were leading the way to show that women could be in space too.
0:51.7	Going to space, it's not easy. Astronauts are.
0:56.3	Superhuman gods basically.
0:58.3	That's Victoria Jaggard. She's one of my buddies here at National Geographic
1:02.8	and a fellow editor. She also writes about space.
1:06.2	It is a physically, mentally, emotionally demanding job.
1:11.4	We are born raised, evolved, to be comfortable with this level of gravity, with this atmospheric
1:18.2	pressure. So if we're all meant to be earthbound, how do we decide who makes a good astronaut?
1:25.4	At the beginning of the space race, NASA thought there was a quick answer.
1:29.7	But Sarah Ratley and a bunch of other women made the country think again.
1:39.7	I'm Peter Gwynn and this is overheard at National Geographic. A show where we
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