In 1958, President Eisenhower responded with an ambitious plan to match and eclipse the USSR’s technological prowess, creating the National Aeronautics and Space Agency: NASA. Less than a decade after the USSR developed an atomic bomb, its successful launch of Sputnik all but shattered America’s faith in its own technical superiority. The way America’s space agency came into existence lay at the heart of the issue. Since its founding twenty years prior, NASA had excluded women and minorities from its astronaut corps for reasons as complex as the era itself. When Judy’s class walked on stage for the first time as a group, everyone could feel the new energy, the uptick in tempo. Others wore smart slacks and colorful scarves. Some of the women donned skirts, heels, and jewelry. They wore flared collars, polyester suits, and turtlenecks. At least one was gay, although no one knew it at the time. They ranged in age from twenty-six to thirty-eight. They were atheists, Jews, Buddhists, Protestants, and Catholics. They came from twenty-six states and twenty-seven different academic institutions. But now, there were civilians, too: doctors, engineers, chemists, physicists, earth scientists, and astronomers. Yes, there were the usual military pilots of old: Twenty-one were military officers, nineteen of whom had served in Vietnam. Gone were the rows of buzz cuts and dark suits that typified every prior astronaut group. Compared to their predecessors, they were more open-minded, free-thinking, and resistant to patrician rules.Īstronaut Class 8 looked like none before it. Many were upending the social rules established by former generations and challenging revered institutions. They lived through and participated in political protests and upheaval on their university campuses and in their cities. Kennedy’s presidency, but faded into disillusionment during Vietnam, Watergate, and the assassinations of their young leaders-Martin Luther King Jr., John and Robert Kennedy, and Malcolm X. Their teenage and college years began with the optimism of John F. Many were upending the social rules established by former generations and challenging revered institutions.īorn during and after World War II, these men and women had come of age in the revolutionary 1960s. Godspeed to the newest generation of astronauts.” For weeks, print, radio, and television reporters had hounded the new recruits, calling them at their homes and showing up unannounced at their workplaces and universities, but today was their official introduction to the world. “Among them are three Blacks, one Oriental, and six women: Ronald McNair, Fred Gregory, Guion ‘Guy’ Bluford, Ellison Onizuka, Anna Fisher, Shannon Lucid, Judy Resnik, Sally Ride, Rhea Seddon, and Kathy Sullivan.

“NASA chose the thirty-five persons who will ride the space shuttle to orbit and back,” reported CBS News’s Walter Cronkite.

All three major networks-ABC, CBS, and NBC- headlined the story. Two weeks prior, on January 16, NASA had released the names of its newest astronauts. As the rest of the thirty-five astronauts filled the stage in order of last name, the scene looked more like a high school graduation photo than the announcement of NASA’s next astronaut class. Now, seated next to Sally Ride, Judy crossed her ankles and folded her hands gently in her lap, as prim and proper as a charm school student. Earlier in the day, Judy dressed for the event, straightening her naturally curly hair and putting on a white button-down shirt, a below-the-knee skirt, and conservative heels. This isn’t a dream, she reminded herself, heading to one of the plastic scoop-back chairs set out on the stage. Christopher Kraft said into the microphone.Īs Judy walked across the carpeted stage, she blinked back the bright lights from the reporters’ flashing cameras.

Nasa picture of the day official