aleon515,
My sisters had a hissy fit because she did not wear makeup during an interview back then! I remember the original 7 astronaunts, the ones that got me into science. Back then it was worse for the African-American candidates. JKF sponsored one of them in the background. As it was reported, the sponsor was assassinated on Friday, the Air Force transferred the black test pilot elsewhere on the following Monday during the funeral. The black candidate served the rest of his commission and became a sculptor here in the Denver area. The Denver Post had articles on him from time to time.
If you read the history on the early NASA test pilot program, they tested the female pilots as well as the males. In a lot of the cases, the women outperformed the men. It was the space race and the Cold War all in one. So the men had to do it, besides our boosters were blowing up on the pad more often than not. The Soviets did put a woman, Valentina Tereshkova, a civilian and amateur parachutist up in June, 1963 after the last US Mercury flight. It was June, 1983, 20 years later when the next woman in space, Sally K. Ride became the first American in Space. There was quite a time gap between #1 and #2, still a boys' club on both sides of the race.
Joelene
