RIGHT STUFF BUT WRONG SEX
Cobb earned her private pilot's license at seventeen and her commercial pilot's license at eighteen. In 1959 she was praised by NASA and told she would be the first woman in space. The next year she passed all the training given to the male astronauts, ranking in the top 2% of all candidates. NASA required all astronauts be military test pilots so the Mercury Thirteen program was disbanded. Soon after, the Russians put a woman in space. It would be nineteen years before a woman flew in space again. For the next 34 years, Cobb did missionary work in South America. Her final chance came in 1999 when NASA put 78-year-old John Glenn in space but they refused.
