This book tells the fascinating stories of the valiant women who broke down barriers to join the space program. Beginning with the orbital flight of USSR cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova in 1963, they became players in the greatest adventure of our time. The author contextualizes their accomplishments in light of the political and cultural climate, from the Cold War in the background to the changing status of women in society at large during the Seventies. The book includes the biographies of, and in some cases interviews with, the sixty women who flew in space in the first half century of space history. It reports their achievements and some little known details. The result is a gallery of pioneering women who reached for the stars: women who, with exceptional skill, hard work, and dedication, reached impressive careers as accomplished pilots, researchers, and engineers; many are now in high level managerial positions both at NASA or in public and private organizations, and all left a legacy of strength.
The recent 50th anniversaries of the first human spaceflights by the Soviet Union and the United States, and the 30th anniversary of the launching of the first U.S. Space Shuttle mission, have again brought to mind the pioneering accomplishments of the first quarter century of humans in space. Historians, political scientists and others have extensively examined the technical, programmatic and political history of human spaceflight from the 1960s to the 1980s, but work is only beginning on the social and cultural history of the pioneering era. One rapidly developing area of recent scholarship is the examination of the images of spacefarers in the media, government propaganda and popular culture. How was space travel imagined in the visual media on the cusp of human spaceflights? How were astronauts and cosmonauts represented in official and quasi-official media portraits? And how were those images reproduced and transformed by in the imagination of film-makers, movie producers, popular writers, and novelists? Spacefarers addresses these questions with nine contributions from scholars in the field of aerospace history, Russian and American history, and English literature. These essays are preceded by an introduction by the editor, who discusses their place in the historiography of spaceflight and social and cultural history. The book will have potential appeal to a wide variety of scholars in history, literature and the social sciences and will include a number of striking visual images.
Over the years, a large body of knowledge has developed regarding the ways in which space flight affects the health of the personnel involved. Now, for the first time, this clinical knowledge on how to diagnose and treat conditions that either develop during a mission or because of a mission has been compiled by Drs. Michael Barratt and Sam L. Pool of the NASA/Johnson Space Center. Complete with detailed information on the physiological and psychological affects of space flight as well as how to diagnose and treat everything from dental concerns to decompression to dermatological problems encountered, this text is a must have for all those associated with aerospace medicine.
In Space Enterprise - Living and Working Offworld, Dr Philip Harris provides the vision and rationale as to why humanity is leaving its cradle, Earth, to use space resources, as well as pursuing lunar industrialization and establishing offworld settlements. As a management/space psychologist, Dr. Harris presents a behavioral science perspective on space exploration and enterprise. In this his 45th book, Phil has completely revised and updated the two previous editions of this classic, placing new emphasis on the need for more synergy and participation by the private sector. He not only provides a critical review of what is happening in the global space community, but offers specific strategies for lunar economic development. The author analyzes the human factors in contemporary and future space developments, especially relative to the deployment of people aloft. This user-friendly volume offers numerous photographs, diagrams, exhibits, and case studies.
* This is the only book that provides the full story of the role of women in space exploration. * Previously unpublished photographs of various aspects of training and participation in spaceflights are included. * Personal interviews with female cosmonauts and astronauts. * Traces the history of female aviation milestones from the early part of the 20th Century to the current space programme.
The recent 50th anniversaries of the first human spaceflights by the Soviet Union and the United States, and the 30th anniversary of the launching of the first U.S. Space Shuttle mission, have again brought to mind the pioneering accomplishments of the first quarter century of humans in space. Historians, political scientists and others have extensively examined the technical, programmatic and political history of human spaceflight from the 1960s to the 1980s, but work is only beginning on the social and cultural history of the pioneering era. One rapidly developing area of recent scholarship is the examination of the images of spacefarers in the media, government propaganda and popular culture. How was space travel imagined in the visual media on the cusp of human spaceflights? How were astronauts and cosmonauts represented in official and quasi-official media portraits? And how were those images reproduced and transformed by in the imagination of film-makers, movie producers, popular writers, and novelists? Spacefarers addresses these questions with nine contributions from scholars in the field of aerospace history, Russian and American history, and English literature. These essays are preceded by an introduction by the editor, who discusses their place in the historiography of spaceflight and social and cultural history. The book will have potential appeal to a wide variety of scholars in history, literature and the social sciences and will include a number of striking visual images.
The book Lady Astronauts, Lady Engineers, and Naked Ladies is a gender history of the American space community and by extension a social history of American society in the twentieth century during the Cold War. In order to expand and differentiate the prevalent postwar narrative about gender relations and cultural structures in the United States, the book analyzes several different groups of women interacting in different social spaces within the space community. It therewith grants insight into the several layers of female participation and agency in the community and the gender and race based obstacles and hurdles the female (prospective) astronauts, scientists, engineers, artists, administrators, writers, hostesses, secretaries, and wives were faced with at NASA and in the space industry. In each chapter a different social space within the space community is analyzed. The spaces where the women lived and worked are researched from a media, individual, and institutional angle, ultimately revealing the differing gender philosophies communicated in the public sphere and the space community workplaces by government and space community officials. While women were publicly encouraged to participate in the American space effort to beat the Soviet Union in the race to the moon, women had to deal with gender based barriers which were integral to the structures of the space community; just as they were an intrinsic component of all societal structures in the United States in the 1960s. The female space workers, who were often perceived as disrupters of the prevalent social order in the space community and discriminated by some of their male colleagues and bosses on a personal basis, still managed to assert themselves. They molded pockets of agency in the space community workspaces without the facilitation of regulations on the part of NASA that might have provided them with easier access or more agency. Thus, the space community, a place of technological innovation, was not necessarily also a place of social innovation, but a community with a government agency at its center that mainly mirrored the current (changing) social order, conventions, and policies in the 1960s as well as in the 1970s and 1980s. Nevertheless, the women presented in this book were instrumental in advancing and consolidating the social transformation that happened within the space community and the United States and therefore make intriguing subjects of research. Thus, this systematic analysis of the connection between gender, space, and the Cold War adds a new dimension to space history as well as expands the discourse in American history about gender relations and the opportunities of women in the twentieth century.
From the creation of the Manned Spacecraft Center to the launching of the International Space Station and beyond, Making Space for Women explores how careers for women at Johnson Space Center have changed over the past fifty years as the workforce became more diverse and fields once closed to women--the astronaut corps and flight control--began to open. Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal has selected twenty-one interviews conducted for the NASA Oral History Projects, including those with astronauts, mathematicians, engineers, secretaries, scientists, trainers, managers, and more. The women featured not only discuss leadership, teamwork, and the experiences of being "the first," but reveal how the role of the working woman in a predominantly white, male, technical agency has evolved. The narratives highlight the societal and cultural changes these women witnessed and the lessons they learned as they pursued different career paths. Among those included are Joan E. Higginbotham, mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery; Natalie V. Saiz, first female director of the Human Resource Office; Kathryn Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space; Estella Hernández Gillette, the deputy director of the center's External Relations Office; and Carolyn Huntoon, the first woman director of the Johnson Space Center. Making Space for Women offers a unique view of the history of human spaceflight while also providing a broader understanding of changes in American culture, society, industry, and life for women in the space program. The women featured in this book demonstrate that there are no boundaries or limits to a career at NASA for those who choose to seize the opportunity.
This book is the second edition of Women Spacefarers and tells the fascinating stories of the valiant women who broke down barriers to join the space program. Beginning with the orbital flight of USSR cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and continuing to the present day, it covers the many female players who have had a central role in the greatest adventure of our time. The book includes the biographies of, and in some cases interviews with, the brave women who have flown in space. For each entry, the author contextualizes the spacefarer's accomplishments in light of the political and cultural climate of the time. The second edition features fifteen additional profiles on figures such as Jessica Meir and Wally Funk; new interview material; a new thematic structure based on each woman's science specialty and role; an expanded glossary; and more. The result is a gallery of pioneering women who reached for the stars: women who, with exceptional skill, hard work, and dedication, reached impressive careers as accomplished pilots, researchers, engineers and managers, and left a legacy of strength for all aspiring spacefarers.
The spatial turn in the Humanities and Social Sciences has produced a considerable body of work which re-assesses space beyond the fixed Cartesian co-ordinates of Modernity and the nation state. In the process, space has been revealed as a productively contested concept with methodological implications across and between disciplines. The resulting understandings of space as fluid, changeable and responsive to the situation of bodies, both human and non-human has prepared the ground for radical concepts and uses of space with implications for how we conceive of contemporary lived reality. Rather than conceiving of bodies as constantly rendered docile within the spaces of the post-industrial nation state, Radical Space reveals how activists and artists have deployed these theoretical tools to examine and contest spatial practice.. Bringing together contributions from academics across the humanities and social sciences together with creative artists this dynamically multidisciplinary collection demonstrates this radicalization of space through explorations of environmental camps, new explorations of psychogeography, creative interventions in city space and mapping the extra-terrestrial onto the mundane spaces of everyday existence.
