The Space Shuttle: 4. The 35 new guys

13 Minutes Presents: The Space Shuttle

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, History

9.5 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nasa recruits women and ethnic minorities for the first time to its astronaut class. In the beginning of American spaceflight, all astronauts selected for the programme came from the same background. They were all male, all white – all test pilots.

But now, with a revolutionary new spacecraft, and changing views in society, Nasa needs to change. They’re not just looking for people to pilot the shuttle, but engineers, scientists, and medical doctors.

Can Nasa change its culture?

This episode contains strong language.

Some scenes in this series use recreated sound effects.

13 Minutes Presents: The Space Shuttle is a BBC Audio Science Unit production for the BBC World Service.

Hosted by space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock.

Theme music by Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg, and produced by Russell Emanuel, for Bleeding Fingers Music.

Archive: Mercury seven press conference, Nasa Archives, 1959 Nichelle Nichols Nasa advertisement, Nasa Archives, 1977 Where dreams come true, Nasa Archives, 1979 First female and African-American astronauts train at Nasa, ABC News, 1978 Ronald Reagan declares Space Shuttle open for business, Reagan Library, 1982 Sally Ride interview, ITN, 1983 Mission audio and oral histories, Nasa History Office

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This episode contains strong language.
0:03.0	Some scenes in this series use recreated sound effects.
0:07.0	Ladies and gentlemen, today we are introducing to you and to the world.
0:15.0	These seven men who have been selected to begin training for orbital space flight.
0:21.9	It's the very beginning of American manned space flight.
0:26.4	The year is 1959.
0:30.7	These men, the nation's Project Mercury astronauts.
0:37.5	NASA's first administrator, Dr. Keith Glennon,
0:41.7	is addressing a room full of reporters.
0:45.4	Sitting at a long table beside him are seven men.
0:49.4	They're relaxed, confident.
0:52.7	I'm quite sure that no finer group of men could have been selected by the tests that are
0:59.0	available to us today. All have short hair, all clean-shaven, all white. These men have been chosen from
1:08.6	a population of about 180 million. They've actually been chosen from a population of about 180 million.
1:12.5	They've actually been selected from a smaller group than that.
1:16.2	They're all from an elite group of military test pilots.
1:20.3	They're tough and disciplined and used to the risks of flying.
1:24.8	What is the motivation of these men?
1:27.2	The question is, what is the motivation of these men?
1:30.3	Let's try that starting from the left and go down.
1:34.3	There's a bigger question underlying this.
1:37.3	What kind of person wants to be the first,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.