Today in History—January 16: “Thirty-Five New Guys”—Six of Whom Were Women

On this day in 1978 NASA made an announcement: It had recruited the first new class of astronauts in almost a decade. Among these “thirty-five new guys,” as the candidates called themselves, were—for the first time—six women: physicist Sally Ride, electrical engineer Judith Resnik, geologist Kathryn Sullivan, doctor Anna Fisher, doctor Margaret Rhea Seddon, and biochemist Shannon Lucid.

Also bucking the all-white, all-male precedent were three African American men and one Asian American man, making this the first astronaut class to include both women and people of color.

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Up until this point, the only females America had sent to space had been spiders and monkeys. That’s what Ruth Bates Harris, NASA’s first Equal Employment Opportunity director, wrote in a 1973 report blasting the lack of diversity at the space agency. The report got her fired.

For years, NASA’s requirements for becoming an astronaut had included military jet test pilot experience—which effectively closed the door to women, who were not allowed to fly in combat missions (a policy that stayed in place until 1993). But the space shuttle changed that. It created the role of mission specialist, which required no formal flying experience. This opened up opportunities for scientists, doctors, and engineers of any sex.

All six women in NASA’s 1978 astronaut class completed the training program, and every one of them made it to space. Ride became the first American woman in space in 1983. Sullivan became the first American woman to perform a spacewalk in 1984. Lucid set a record for the longest stay in space by a woman. Resnik tragically died in the 1986 Challenger disaster. Seddon served on the first mission to study the effects of zero gravity on the human body. Fisher would go on to become one of the longest-serving astronauts, retiring after almost 40 years.

Although these six women get a lot of well-deserved credit as the first official class members, they weren’t actually America’s first female astronaut trainees. In the 1960s, 13 women completed an unofficial training based on NASA’s Mercury program, but that program was abruptly shut down, resulting in congressional-level investigations of discrimination.

The “Mercury 13” never made it to space, but they made the question of women in space impossible to ignore. And in 1978 NASA finally answered it. Now if we can only get spacesuits that come in size medium.

Famous Birthdays

1245: Edmund Crouchback, 1st earl of Lancaster—English noble

1932: Dian Fossey—American zoologist

1807: Charles Henry Davis—American naval scientist

1948: Anatoly Yakovlevich Solovyov—Soviet cosmonaut