In article ,
"Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj" wrote:

Fred J. McCall wrote:

(D.K.) wrote:

:P.S. First American woman in space was what - 20 years after
:Tereshkova?

Yes, the difference being that we didn't send one until she had an
actual purpose in being there. 'Parachute packer in a can' as a
'first' is hardly something to be beating your chest about.

Sour grapes?
I believe that in addition to the obvioous political political
purpose, they even manufactured a set of 'opportunity knocks'
scientific, medical, purposes for launching her.

About the same time that the Mercury astronauts were selected and in
training, a group a woman aviators were undergoing a similar process.

One of my flight instructors around 1972, when I was working on getting
my pilot's license, Irene Leverton, was a member of that group. At the
time is was taking instruction from here, she had something like 20,000
hours transport time logged along with most of the expected tickets. Not
someone to take any guff from anyone, was my impression at the time, but
she was a very good instructor.

The project was killed for political reasons; they figured that the
American public wouldn't tolerate a woman being killed on flight
operations.