The Mercury 13

The words

1. Dietrich

   Jan and Marion Dietrich were twin sisters who both underwent Lovelace’s medical examinations in 1961. Each passed, putting two members of one family among the thirteen successful pilots.

   Museum of Women Pilots: the Dietrich twins (opens a new tab) · Smithsonian: Cobb and the women’s tests (opens a new tab)

2. Irene Leverton

   Irene Leverton passed the Lovelace medical tests and built a career across commercial aviation. Her work included ferrying aircraft, flying air ambulances and teaching other pilots.

   Did you know?

   For fourteen years, Leverton served as an FAA-designated pilot examiner. She also operated her own flight school and air-taxi service, helping other people enter aviation.

   Pima museum: Irene Leverton’s flying (opens a new tab)

3. Isolation Tank

   Cobb, Hurrle and Funk took additional isolation-tank tests and psychological evaluations in Oklahoma City. Not all thirteen women were asked to undertake these evaluations.

   NASA history: Lovelace’s private project (opens a new tab)

4. Jackie Cochran

   Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran paid the women’s testing expenses and advised Lovelace’s project. At the 1962 hearings, she raised concerns about creating a separate women’s astronaut-training program.

   NASA history: Lovelace’s private project (opens a new tab)

5. Jane Hart

   Pilot Jane Hart joined Jerrie Cobb in seeking government support for women’s astronaut testing. They took their case to Vice President Lyndon Johnson and the 1962 congressional hearings.

   Library of Congress: the women’s advocacy (opens a new tab)

6. Jean Hixson

   Jean Hixson combined a career as an Akron schoolteacher with experience as a wartime pilot. She flew B-25 bombers and later underwent the Lovelace examinations in 1961.

   University of Akron: Jean Hixson (opens a new tab)

7. Jerri Sloan

   Jerri Sloan Truhill passed Lovelace’s physical tests. In a 1999 NASA interview, Wally Funk described her as the person the former participants called to exchange news and stay in touch.

   Smithsonian: Cobb and the women’s tests (opens a new tab) · NASA oral history: keeping the group in touch (opens a new tab)

8. Jerrie Cobb

   In 1960, Jerrie Cobb became the first woman to pass Lovelace’s physical examinations. She helped recruit other women and later pressed for official support to continue the testing.

   Did you know?

   Cobb’s first airplane ride came at age twelve in an open-cockpit Waco. She went on to build a career as a ferry, corporate and test pilot.

   Smithsonian: Cobb and the women’s tests (opens a new tab)

9. Lovelace

   Physician William Randolph Lovelace helped devise the medical examinations used in Mercury astronaut selection. His foundation later tested women pilots privately, outside NASA’s astronaut selection program.

   Smithsonian: Cobb and the women’s tests (opens a new tab)

10. Myrtle Cagle

    Before the Lovelace tests, Myrtle Cagle built a career as a flight instructor and charter pilot. She later added aircraft-mechanic qualifications to her flying experience.

    Did you know?

    Cagle made her wedding dress from parachute material. The International Women’s Air and Space Museum preserved it alongside her flying papers and other personal belongings.

    Women’s Air and Space Museum: Cagle (opens a new tab)

11. Ninety-Nines

    Most of Lovelace’s candidates were recruited through the Ninety-Nines. Founded in 1929, this women pilots’ organization provided a community that supported their aviation ambitions.

    NASA history: Lovelace’s private project (opens a new tab) · The Ninety-Nines: the organization’s history (opens a new tab)

12. Pensacola

    The women’s planned follow-up examinations in Pensacola were canceled. The Navy would not provide its facilities without an official NASA request for the privately organized project.

    NASA history: Lovelace’s private project (opens a new tab)

13. Rhea Hurrle

    Rhea Hurrle, later known as Rhea Woltman, passed the initial Lovelace medical examinations. She also underwent additional isolation and psychological tests in Oklahoma City.

    NASA history: Lovelace’s private project (opens a new tab)

14. Vertigo

    The sensation that you or your surroundings are spinning or moving.

    Lovelace’s examinations deliberately provoked vertigo so physicians could measure recovery time. This was part of the historical medical screening.

    NASA history: Lovelace’s private project (opens a new tab) · MedlinePlus: the meaning of vertigo (opens a new tab)

15. Wally Funk

    On July 20, 2021, Wally Funk flew aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard at age 82. Decades earlier, she had passed Lovelace’s privately organized medical tests.

    Smithsonian: Cobb and the women’s tests (opens a new tab) · Blue Origin: Funk’s July 2021 spaceflight (opens a new tab)