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Matt Wiser
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 Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 12:25 pm Post subject: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a serio |
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ISTR a story about Dan Goldin and it mentioned an idea of his for an all-female shuttle crew
for a mission either to ISS or for a Spacelab-type flight. He supposedly came up with the
idea after Eileen Collins commanded Columbia, and there were two other females rated as
pilots at that time-Pam Melroy and Sue Still. Was this idea just a stunt on his part or was it
considered in all seriousness? |
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| Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:42 am Post subject: Re: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a s |
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Here's an article from back in 1999, sounds like Melroy wasn't too hot
about the idea. I can't imagine Collins was either. Melroy is the only
female flight officer remaining with Collins retiring and Still
returning to the Navy.
"NASA considers shuttle flight with all-female crew; [FINAL Edition]
Tampa Tribune. Tampa, Fla.: Mar 29, 1999. pg. 5
Earlier this month, NASA chief Daniel Goldin told a group of female
aerospace professionals that the agency is considering manning an
upcoming shuttle flight with an all-woman crew.
Some women fear the flight would be seen as a gimmick: After John
Glenn's well-publicized trip, some suspect NASA is looking for ways to
grab more attention - and more funding. "We'd prefer not to have our
professionalism taken lightly by becoming a sideshow," says Lt. Col.
Pamela Melroy, a shuttle pilot.
But one former astronaut says that, if handled correctly, the mission
could provide symbolic satisfaction for the agency's current crop of
29 female fliers. Sixteen years after Sally Ride became NASA's first
woman in space, she says, "It's kind of a fun gesture to show how far
we've come." |
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Matt Wiser
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| Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:15 am Post subject: Re: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a s |
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bravozulu2000@yahoo.com wrote:
| Quote: |
Interesting that the active females seemed to be against it, but Sally Ride was all for it. |
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| Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 7:12 am Post subject: Re: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a s |
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On Jun 14, 12:15 am, "Matt Wiser" <MattWiser...@yahoo.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
bravozulu2...@yahoo.com wrote:
Interesting that the active females seemed to be against it, but Sally Ride was all for it.
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I wouldn't say all the active females were against it, but I can
understand Melroy and Collins being against it, because they are
flight officers/mission commanders who earned their way into the left
seat. I think their perspective is different from the average egg head
"mission specialist", like Sally Ride.
Commanders and pilots control the stick. Everyone else is just along
for the ride. |
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Matt Wiser
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| Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 12:56 pm Post subject: Re: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a s |
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"Matt Wiser" <MattWiser_99@yahoo.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
bravozulu2000@yahoo.com wrote:
Interesting that the active females seemed to be against it, but Sally Ride was all for it.
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I'm wondering if Goldin was thinking of all the great publicity that John Glenn's trip had, and was looking to top it. Astronautix.com mentions at least one planned Soviet flight with an
all-female crew sometime in 1965 being planned, then canned. |
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| Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 8:11 pm Post subject: Re: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a s |
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On Jun 15, 1:56 am, "Matt Wiser" <MattWiser...@yahoo.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
"Matt Wiser" <MattWiser...@yahoo.com> wrote:
bravozulu2...@yahoo.com wrote:
Interesting that the active females seemed to be against it, but Sally Ride was all for it.
I'm wondering if Goldin was thinking of all the great publicity that John Glenn's trip had, and was looking to top it. Astronautix.com mentions at least one planned Soviet flight with an
all-female crew sometime in 1965 being planned, then canned.
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I don't even think the Russkies have ever had a woman commander.
Tereshkova was a stunt, nothing more. Another one of their glorious
"firsts" |
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Henry Spencer
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| Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 10:55 am Post subject: Re: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a s |
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In article <1181923893.325833.190200@o11g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
<bravozulu2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
Astronautix.com mentions at least one planned Soviet flight with an
all-female crew sometime in 1965 being planned, then canned.
I don't even think the Russkies have ever had a woman commander.
Tereshkova was a stunt, nothing more. Another one of their glorious
"firsts"
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And an all-female Voskhod would have been largely a stunt, but that
doesn't mean it wasn't being considered. And in fact, it was. Disregard
Astronautix.com, which often isn't the best of sources; Siddiqi's
"Challenge to Apollo" (and his earlier paper in the Jan 1997 JBIS)
discusses Soviet plans for further Voskhod missions. And yes, at one
point Voskhod 5 was going to be a long-duration flight including a
spacewalk, by a crew of two women. Ponomareva and Soloveva, two of the
four other women who trained with Tereshkova, were in training for it.
So what happened? Well, the Voskhod 3+ schedule kept slipping because
of technical problems. There were persistent problems with the improved
life-support system for the long flights. Test drops of the heavier
Voskhod kept having parachute failures. And to put the icing on the
cake, in late March 1966, a comsat launch using the same booster had a
catastrophic launch failure due to an explosion in the third stage.
The only actual flight done for the Voskhod continuation was Kosmos 110,
launched in late Feb 1966, a long-duration test flight carrying two dogs.
It was generally successful, although it was brought down a few days early
because of worries about deteriorating atmospheric composition. (The dogs,
unfortunately, were not in good shape, elevating concerns about medical
effects of lengthy flights.)
What finally killed Voskhod was the combination of Korolev's death, the
spectacular successes of the Gemini program, and the limitations of
Voskhod. Mishin's first job as Korolev's successor was a reassessment of
the program. Voskhod with a two-man crew could match or exceed Gemini's
duration record, and could do spacewalks, but it had no maneuvering
capability, and this looked like a serious fault when Gemini was already
doing increasingly-ambitious rendezvous missions. Worse, Apollo manned
flights were then scheduled to start within a year. The resources needed
to carry on with the limited and marginal Voskhod were arguably better
spent on getting Soyuz working. And it looks like Mishin didn't want to
start his tenure as the boss by trying to coax successful missions out of
a lame-duck spacecraft. So Voskhod 3 and beyond died.
Some of the pieces of the planned Voskhod continuation were merged into
Soyuz, but others were dropped, and the all-female flight was one of them.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | henry@spsystems.net |
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mike flugennock
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| Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 6:21 pm Post subject: Re: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a s |
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Henry Spencer wrote:
| Quote: |
In article <1181923893.325833.190200@o11g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
bravozulu2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
Astronautix.com mentions at least one planned Soviet flight with an
all-female crew sometime in 1965 being planned, then canned.
I don't even think the Russkies have ever had a woman commander.
Tereshkova was a stunt, nothing more. Another one of their glorious
"firsts"
And an all-female Voskhod would have been largely a stunt, but that
doesn't mean it wasn't being considered. And in fact, it was. Disregard
Astronautix.com, which often isn't the best of sources; Siddiqi's
"Challenge to Apollo" (and his earlier paper in the Jan 1997 JBIS)
discusses Soviet plans for further Voskhod missions. And yes, at one
point Voskhod 5 was going to be a long-duration flight including a
spacewalk, by a crew of two women...
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I know I'm taking a big PC risk here, but I think at least at this point
-- still -- flying an all-female crew would still be more or less a
stunt, an interesting curiosity along the lines of those all-girl
orchestras and big bands you used to see in old movies. Really hot bands
they were, but the big draw was that it was an all-girl band. I think
it'd be a long time before we'd have enough woman pilots and MSs in the
program to give us the statistical possibility of an all-female crew
based purely on merit and experience.
Besides, wasn't the Teacher In Space flight pretty much a stunt, as well
(just not the kind we actually got)? Inspiring it may have been to all
those kids who wanted to be astronauts or scientists when they grew up,
still...
And don't even get me started about Glenn. I think it was really sweet
that the old bird finally got his second flight, but still...if I'd
_really_ wanted to test the effects of advanced age on previous
spaceflight crewmen, I'd rather have sent John Young, a guy of about
Glenn's age who'd actually _flown_ the Shuttle, and set up an experiment
where he takes the PLT's seat for a course of orbital manuvers, perhaps
some simulated stationkeeping or stationkeeping with a powered dummy
target released by the RMS arm, gathering data on things like hand/eye
skill/speed and such -- and, of course, giving ol' John a chance to put
up or shut up about all this continuing training and staying on the
"active" list (although I'm sure he's got to be _off_ it by _now_).
--
..
"Though I could not caution all, I yet may warn a few:
Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools!"
--grateful dead.
________________________________________________________________
Mike Flugennock, flugennock at sinkers dot org
Mike's Political Cartoons: dubya dubya dubya dot sinkers dot org |
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OM
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 8:37 am Post subject: Re: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a s |
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On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 10:21:30 -0400, mike flugennock
<flvg3nn0zk@stinkers.org> wrote:
| Quote: |
Really hot bands
they were, but the big draw was that it was an all-girl band.
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....Ah, that wild night in '78, when the Runaways performed in one of
Austin's premier punk clubs, and the post-gig party. Jackie, Sandy and
Lyta were great, Cherie talked too much, and Joan was nowhere to be
found after the show as she went back to the motel room to crash. My
liver still claims scar tissue exists from that night :-)
OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
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mike flugennock
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| Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 4:13 pm Post subject: Re: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a s |
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OM wrote:
| Quote: |
On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 10:21:30 -0400, mike flugennock
flvg3nn0zk@stinkers.org> wrote:
Really hot bands
they were, but the big draw was that it was an all-girl band.
...Ah, that wild night in '78, when the Runaways performed in one of
Austin's premier punk clubs, and the post-gig party. Jackie, Sandy and
Lyta were great, Cherie talked too much, and Joan was nowhere to be
found after the show as she went back to the motel room to crash. My
liver still claims scar tissue exists from that night :-)
|
Oh, wow, yeah. The Runaways! I'd almost forgotten about them. Thanks!
--
..
"Though I could not caution all, I yet may warn a few:
Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools!"
--grateful dead.
________________________________________________________________
Mike Flugennock, flugennock at sinkers dot org
Mike's Political Cartoons: dubya dubya dubya dot sinkers dot org |
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Henry Spencer
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| Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 10:32 pm Post subject: Re: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a s |
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In article <9e378$4673f2a0$4366619c$5182@msgid.meganewsservers.com>,
mike flugennock <flvg3nn0zk@stinkers.org> wrote:
| Quote: |
I know I'm taking a big PC risk here, but I think at least at this point
-- still -- flying an all-female crew would still be more or less a
stunt...
|
Kinda sorta. Certainly it would have to be deliberately set up -- it
wouldn't happen by accident -- but it could be done as otherwise a
perfectly normal flight with a full workload. It wouldn't be a stunt
in the sense of having no value except publicity.
| Quote: |
it'd be a long time before we'd have enough woman pilots and MSs in the
program to give us the statistical possibility of an all-female crew
based purely on merit and experience.
|
Do bear in mind that the crew-selection process is notoriously arbitrary,
with merit and experience apparently only minor considerations. The
long-standing policy of the Astronaut Office is that any astronaut is
qualified for any flight, although some may be better choices than others
for some flights.
| Quote: |
Besides, wasn't the Teacher In Space flight pretty much a stunt, as well
(just not the kind we actually got)? Inspiring it may have been to all
those kids who wanted to be astronauts or scientists when they grew up,
still...
|
The basic idea behind Citizens In Space was a reasonable one, for a
publicly-funded space program: to fly people who would be better than
the astronauts (a notoriously inarticulate bunch) at communicating the
experience of spaceflight to the public. It wasn't just a teacher; there
were plans to fly journalists and artists as well. (In fact, putting a
teacher first was Reagan's idea, not NASA's.)
JSC in general and the Astronaut Office in particular never liked the idea
much, and the Challenger accident was the perfect excuse to kill it. In
theory, Citizens In Space was just put on hold after Challenger, but it
was abundantly clear that the "hold" was going to be permanent.
The one last snag was Barbara Morgan -- Christa McAuliffe's backup -- who
kept embarrassing NASA by reminding them that she was ready when they
were. That got solved back in 1998 by finding an excuse to admit her to
astronaut training. That announcement was the final obituary for Citizens
In Space. Henceforth NASA would fly government astronauts only; no
ordinary citizens need apply. Well, unless they were ex-astronaut
senators who'd done the President a major political favor...
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | henry@spsystems.net |
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Terrell Miller
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| Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 10:53 pm Post subject: Re: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a s |
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"OM" <om@all_trolls_must_DIE.com> wrote in message
news:hbe973hcckqnm6auvrsekpat5ond1pu3m1@4ax.com...
| Quote: |
...Ah, that wild night in '78, when the Runaways performed in one of
Austin's premier punk clubs, and the post-gig party. Jackie, Sandy and
Lyta were great,
|
as if
;)
--
Terrell Miller
millerto@bellsouth.net
"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the
work of one extraordinary man."
- Elbert Hubbard |
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OM
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:39 am Post subject: Re: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a s |
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On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:32:44 GMT, henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
wrote:
| Quote: |
Kinda sorta. Certainly it would have to be deliberately set up -- it
wouldn't happen by accident -- but it could be done as otherwise a
perfectly normal flight with a full workload. It wouldn't be a stunt
in the sense of having no value except publicity.
|
....Especially when the first catfight breaks out on the middeck
between two MS in the middle of PMS over a stolen curling iron.
(Sorry, had to break up a fight like that during a DJ shift
yesterday...)
OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[ |
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OM
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:41 am Post subject: Re: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a s |
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On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 14:53:49 -0400, "Terrell Miller"
<millerto@bellsouth.net> wrote:
| Quote: |
"OM" <om@all_trolls_must_DIE.com> wrote in message
news:hbe973hcckqnm6auvrsekpat5ond1pu3m1@4ax.com...
...Ah, that wild night in '78, when the Runaways performed in one of
Austin's premier punk clubs, and the post-gig party. Jackie, Sandy and
Lyta were great,
as if
|
....And they were. They were in top form that night, apparently saving
the drinking for after the gig(*). It was truly a sad day for the punk
scene when they went their separate ways, because Joan and Lyta went
more "mainstream" female rock, and to me lost a bit of the edge that
made them fun.
(*) "For once" recalled the GM at the time, who'd dealt with the girls
before and wasn't that enthralled even though he did have them back a
second time.
OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[ |
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Matt Wiser
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 9:02 am Post subject: Re: All-female shuttle crew-a Dan Goldin stunt or was it a s |
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mike flugennock <flvg3nn0zk@stinkers.org> wrote:
| Quote: |
John Young's retired from NASA. He left just before Sean O'Keefe left to run LSU. |
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