Arstechnica | Jerrie Cobb, an aviation pioneer and advocate for women in space, has died ~ WAPNETREALM

Geraldyn "Jerrie" M. Cobb died Thursday at the age of 88. [credit: Cobb family collection ]

Geraldyn "Jerrie" M. Cobb, a noted aviation pioneer and fierce advocate for women flying into space, died Thursday at her home in Florida, her family has said. She was 88.

Cobb is perhaps most well known for her participation in what became known as the "Mercury 13," a group of 13 women who passed preliminary screening processes in 1960 and 1961 to determine their suitability as astronauts under the guidance of Dr. Randolph Lovelace. Cobb scored in the top 2 percent of all who had taken the battery of tests for candidates previously, including both women and men.

However, the privately funded effort was not officially sanctioned by NASA. A Netflix documentary about the experience, released in 2018, offered a clear verdict for why women were excluded from NASA in the space agency's early days—"good old-fashioned prejudice," as one of the participants said.

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