In 1960, Dr. William Randolph Lovelace II—who had designed the medical screening for NASA’s Mercury astronauts—wondered how women would perform. He invited accomplished pilot Jerrie Cobb to undergo the identical tests. She passed. Then he recruited twenty-four more women pilots, funded by Jacqueline Cochran. Thirteen passed: the Mercury 13. They endured ice-water in their ears, swallowing tubes, and sensory deprivation tanks. Wally Funk, the youngest at twenty-three, lasted ten hours and thirty-five minutes in the isolation tank—better than any male candidate. The women were preparing for advanced testing at Pensacola when the Navy abruptly canceled the program by telegram; it had no official NASA sponsorship. In July 1962, Jerrie Cobb and Jane Hart testified before Congress. John Glenn told the subcommittee that women not flying jets was simply "a fact of our social order." NASA would not select a female astronaut until 1978. Wally Funk finally reached space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard on July 20, 2021—sixty-one years after she first proved she was ready.