Some good stuff there GF, thanks.
Yeah I read about some of the old timey sexism and the article all but said women weren't allowed to enroll in certain pilot programs.
Kinda cool we're chatting about this today
Wanna hear some other interesting stats? Check out Neil Armstrong's past. He was the first civilian in space, being a test pilot without military background. He also had the least amount of logged time in space before Apollo 11 with something like only 13 hours. Buzz Aldrin was actually considered one of the smartest astronauts in the space program and rarely made jokes during missions. He was such a brainiac that some mission control techs would ask him to solve equations for problems. Buzz was only know for his sense of humor years after the Apollo missions.
Armstrong's Gemini 8 mission was fascinating. That was the one where they were doing a docking test and his vehicle started spinning out of control. He eventually stopped the malfunction and figured out how to do it when the craft was tumbling at the rate of 296 degrees per second. That's a complete Barfarama scenario and his copilot was amazed Armstrong got it back under control, probably saving their lives.
And most people know that when Armstrong and Aldrin were in the LM descending to the moon, the onboard computer had calculated the place to land. Armstrong saw the area out their tiny window and determined the terrain was too rough and he took over manual control of the lander. He used thruster rockets to fly over the intended landing site and by the time they landed, they had 16 seconds of fuel left. That meant they either landed, they aborted the landing, or used up too much fuel and wouldn't be able to get back to the capsule. His coolness under pressure was amazing.