Aug 6, 2026 · 19 min · 11 segments
In the race for space, the Soviets won all of the opening rounds, including the race to put the first woman in orbit. Her name was Valentina Tereshkova, and while we are clear on her success out…
In the aftermath of World War II, it was abundantly clear that technological superiority was king, and any country that wanted to come out on top needed to build the best machines, especially in the new and final frontier, space.
The two main rivals in the race to space were the United States and the Soviet Union, and I can say without hesitation that the Soviets won all of the opening rounds.
The US and its allies were shocked, dismayed, and concerned that it was the beginning of the end.
Money for the US space program began to flow.
See links in the show notes.
The US didn't get their first satellite up until months later.
On April 12th, 1961, the Soviets achieved another triumph with the Vostok 1, which launched Yuri Gagarin into orbit as the first human being in space.
The US chose the word astronaut for the same job title, and they didn't get Alan Shepard up there for a few more weeks.
One race that was still open was who could put the first woman in space.
It could be argued that women were better than men for this job for one simple reason.
On average, women are about 27 pounds lighter than men.
I had a little trouble finding out how much it cost per pound to launch at this point, but even the low end is on the order of $14,000 per pound.
Do a little math and you'll see that sending the average man to space cost $400,000 more than sending the average woman.
Yes, I know there are small men and large women.
I'm just saying that if we're going to exclude a whole gender, there was a solid reason why the one excluded should have been the men folks.
The US response to that fact of biology was to test-train the Mercury 13 women, many of whom performed extremely well before being told that no American woman was going up.
Multiple powerful men just couldn't handle that as a concept, but the official nail to the ground was the requirement that astronauts had to be military pilots.
The military didn't allow women to do that role, ergo, they weren't military pilots, even when they were accomplished pilots, as all of the Mercury 13 women were.
In the aftermath of World War II, it was abundantly clear that technological superiority was king, and any country that wanted to come out on top needed to build the best machines, especially in the new and final frontier, space.
The two main rivals in the race to space were the United States and the Soviet Union, and I can say without hesitation that the Soviets won all of the opening rounds.
The US and its allies were shocked, dismayed, and concerned that it was the beginning of the end.
Money for the US space program began to flow.
See links in the show notes.
The US didn't get their first satellite up until months later.
On April 12th, 1961, the Soviets achieved another triumph with the Vostok 1, which launched Yuri Gagarin into orbit as the first human being in space.
The US chose the word astronaut for the same job title, and they didn't get Alan Shepard up there for a few more weeks.
One race that was still open was who could put the first woman in space.
It could be argued that women were better than men for this job for one simple reason.
On average, women are about 27 pounds lighter than men.
I had a little trouble finding out how much it cost per pound to launch at this point, but even the low end is on the order of $14,000 per pound.
Do a little math and you'll see that sending the average man to space cost $400,000 more than sending the average woman.
Yes, I know there are small men and large women.
I'm just saying that if we're going to exclude a whole gender, there was a solid reason why the one excluded should have been the men folks.
The US response to that fact of biology was to test-train the Mercury 13 women, many of whom performed extremely well before being told that no American woman was going up.
Multiple powerful men just couldn't handle that as a concept, but the official nail to the ground was the requirement that astronauts had to be military pilots.
The military didn't allow women to do that role, ergo, they weren't military pilots, even when they were accomplished pilots, as all of the Mercury 13 women were.
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