Science: From Aviatrix to Astronautrix

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One day last February, trim, 29-year-old Geraldyn Cobb packed a single suitcase, said goodbye to her fellow workers at Aero Design and Engineering Co. in Bethany, Okla., and left for a supposed week's vacation with her parents in Ponca City, 90 miles away, Jerrie Cobb never reached home.

Last week Jerrie's strange disappearance was explained in Stockholm by Dr. W. Randolph Lovelace II, chairman of the Special Committee on the Life Sciences for Project Mercury, the U.S. astronaut program. Jerrie Cobb had spent her "vacation" in Albuquerque, N. Mex. undergoing a brutal battery of 75 separate physical and psychological tests. She was jabbed with an electric needle, rocked back and forth on a tilting table to test her circulation. Her sense of balance was measured by squirting cold water into her ear canals to induce dizziness. Psychologists peppered her with 195 questions (sample: "Do you wish you were dead and away from it all?"), evaluated her ability to adjust to new environments, grasp complicated instructions, keep her sense of humor. The result, according to Dr. Lovelace: she had qualified to "live, observe and do optimal work in the environment of space, and return safely to earth." Jerrie Cobb had become the first U.S. lady astronaut.

Planks on the Pedals. A slender (5 ft. 7 in., 121 lbs.) blonde, Jerrie demonstrated a point that many scientists have long believed: that women may be better equipped than men for existing in space. Reported Project Mercury's Lovelace: women have lower body mass, need significantly less oxygen and less food, hence may be able to go up in lighter capsules, or exist longer than men on the same supplies. Since women's reproductive organs are internally located, they should be able to tolerate higher radiation levels.

The first astronautrix (measurements: 36-27-34) eats hamburgers for breakfast, is an old hand at airplanes, with more air time—over 7,500 hrs.—than any of the male astronauts. The daughter of a then Air Corps captain, Jerrie learned to fly her father's Waco biplane when she was just twelve years old. "Dad fastened 12 in. planks on the pedals so I could reach," she explains.

Now advertising and sales-promotion manager for Aero Design, Bachelor Girl Cobb flew a twin-engined Aero Commander in 1957 to 30,361 ft., a world altitude record for a plane of its class, last year piloted another Commander over an official 2,000-kilometer course at an average speed of 226,148 m.p.h. for another class record. "She's calm as hell in a plane," says an Oklahoma pilot. "There's no fumbling with the radio dials for new frequencies, no fluttering of charts. She's the best organized girl pilot I've ever seen—and the most feminine."