YouSaid · the spoken record

Loren Grush

lines on the record: 77
first: 2023-09-12
most recent: 2023-09-12
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Right, it was the creation of the mission specialist. There's also internal pressure at NASA as well. There's a great story about the saga of Ruth Bates Harris, who was really trying to open everyone's eyes to the problem of diversity that NASA had. I mean, there's a great quote in the book from one of the reports that they did, and it says there have been three female sent into space by NASA to our Arabella and Anita, both spiders. The other is Miss Baker, a monkey.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are the ones that don't. That's just the natural order of things. You know, it just shows kind of what everyone was up against at the time. And it's great that we've very much evolved since then”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, so there are 13 women who underwent some of the same tests that the Mercury 7 underwent and they passed them. And so they wanted to keep training for space. So they had some upcoming training planned military base, but NASA caught wind of it. And since they hadn't requested funding for that training, it got canceled. And so they did this big congressional hearing to try and get that training resumed. They were kind of asking the bare minimum. Obviously, they wanted to go to space, but ultimately they just wanted to keep training to see if they were capable and if they were able to kind of pass those tests. Ultimately, that was squashed and there's a pretty great but also terrible scene of John Glenn coming into the hearing and basically saying, you know, the men are the ones that go off and do these things and the women.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or at least NASA wasn't attempting to bring women to the program. The women were fighting to bring themselves into the program. So yes, they're kind of a famous group. They're referred to now as the Mercury 13. Not the best title. It was a name given to them by, I think, a producer in the 90s or something like that. But it does refer to 13. Oh man, only.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I always think about the organization and what created the opportunities decoder after all. There were earlier attempts to bring women to the program. They kind of failed, right? In the book, you mentioned Mercury 13. There are some others. Why did those fail?”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Her flight was, and it inspired her, you know, talking to young women to go on to create her nonprofit, which she dedicated most of her life to, which Sally Ride Science, which is geared towards inspiring young women to get into STEM fields. So yes, there definitely was a burden, I think, for most of them. It doesn't feel too oppressive and they're proud of it. But there was a time where it was a particular struggle for some of them.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think for the most part, yes, and I don't think they wanted to draw too much attention to it. I think a lot of the burden was on Sally's shoulders because she was the first one to fly, the first American woman to fly. And that came with an exponentially greater amount of pressure and asks of her than the other five had to go through. So for Sally, she was just inundated with media requests, lots of personal questions that she didn't want to answer. And then she was mostly shielded from it ahead of her flight. But then when she returned to Earth, it was definitely a coming back to Earth moment. That protection was gone. And she was just inundated with requests. And it got to be so much that she actually sought out therapy at one point. It really did take a bit of a toll, but ultimately over time, she realized just how monumental.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do they think of it as a burden? I guess that's the heart of my question. It seems like they are proud of being pioneers. They're proud of making the change. They have some funny stories to tell. But I didn't get from the book that the sense that there was a weight or burden that they felt they had carried that other people owed them anything for, that they were just happy to have been astronauts.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That they had to bear, but I think we have gotten to a place where we can say, you know, I am different, but also that means I should still be treated the same.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now, I will say that I do think it's a bit different today. You know, as I mentioned earlier, that time period was all about fitting in and kind of blending into the background. Obviously, the press didn't let them do that because, you know, they were very much agog at the idea of women flying into space. Some of the questions they were asked by the press were just completely terrible. But ultimately, the goal of the six was to just be one of the guys, you know, keep your head down and work as much as possible and not draw too much attention to the fact that they are women. I think we've evolved a bit today where obviously we still want equality when it comes to everyone that we work with, but I do think that we have an easier time at celebrating the fact that we're women and the things that make us unique and different. And I think that ultimately they had to go through that in order for us to get to where we are, which is the burden.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“While their attitude was mostly positive, I think they all felt that they were treated quite well. And I think that also might have to do with how they were treated before they came to NASA. Shannon Lusa is a great example of this. She was slightly older than the rest of the six when she was picked. And just by living in a slightly different era, she had so much difficulty when it came to getting just a job before she went to NASA. She wanted to be a chemist. And she had a master's and then she got her PhD, but she had to fight endlessly for anyone to give her not only a job, but just equal pay to her male colleagues. People would actively tell her, you know, nobody's going to hire you. You're a woman. And so I think they were all very pleasantly surprised when they came into the space program because at the time they were actively wanting women to participate at that time.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I'm not sure. So you've got the six back then, right? They're slapping the Playboy calendar on the way out the door. You obviously are writing the book now. Everyone's got the benefit of hindsight. What are their attitudes now about making that change? Because this is a big, it's an organizational change. It's a cultural change. They had to be the face of it. There has been a long and winding conversation about that brand of feminism even compared to today.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's what I was thinking. I was like, I imagine there's very limited mobility in there. So I'm not sure there's much concern. But that was just the attitude at the time. Lots of hiccups where people were thinking, oh, how would this be seen if I was with you? You know, just various things that we just would not put up with today. But not only did they have to put up with it, but they had to put up with it in a delicate way so that they didn't draw attention to it. Otherwise, that could potentially be used against them and against women being in the program.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Obviously, that's just not the kind of thing that would fly today. It was just things like that and obviously some unenlightened attitudes, not just from the men, but from the women. There were a number of wives of the astronauts at the time who didn't want the women flying in the backseat of the T-38 jets with their husbands just because they felt like that was too close proximity and they didn't want them getting too close, you know.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Researchers, those mission specialist roles, a lot of the military folks were skeptical that the job of an astronaut could be done by someone who had just had a postdoc, you know. Yeah. Now, obviously, we know that it's really available to most. But at the time, you know, it was not seen that way. There's various instances in the book that I highlight where, you know, that culture clash did indeed happen. This was definitely a time where people got away with things. They definitely would not be getting away with today. There's one astronaut admitted to me that, you know, he used to have a Playboy calendar up on the back of his door. And so when his door was open, you couldn't see it. But when it was closed, you could definitely see it. And, you know, the women kind of just had to go along with it. For instance, Judy Resnick, she had a bit of a reputation for, you know, being able to hang with the guys on their terms. And so whenever she'd leave the office, she'd just pat the Playboy calendar on her way out.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There was a lot of outside pressure in the time that the space race happened, this era of the space shuttle happened. A lot changed in our country. We had the civil rights movement, and we also had the feminist movement and NASA really couldn't ignore criticism much longer from people wondering why do we only have white men in the space program. But to your point, you know, it didn't happen overnight. So while they did make this effort and this push to bring women and people of color into the program, you know, there was definitely some friction when it came to bringing them on board. For instance, this was the first time for a lot of the astronauts and engineers working with women at a professional capacity and an equal capacity. A few of them have admitted that at the beginning they were pretty skeptical that the women could hack it, you know, and not just the women, but also the”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We live in a very complicated time in terms of conversations around diversity, equity, inclusion. Obviously, when we work together, you wrote stories about big space companies with harassment problems. We'll come to that. It just strikes me that this is happening before any of that. There's no rigor around the value of diversity in an organization. There's no real understanding of it other than, boy, it's pretty weird. There's no women in space ever, right? Like that's more or less the motivation here. But inside of NASA, there's an organizational restructure that happens to enable more women to enter the field. How did that come about? I mean, that's kind of a key decoder question. You have to change NASA to create these opportunities. What was the driving force behind that?”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then there was a bad cop psychologist who would ask you to count back from 100 by seven. And then when you inevitably messed up, he'd tell you very loudly and get angry with you to see how you responded. They also had to enclose themselves in a personal rescue sphere. It was basically a little ball just to make sure that you didn't freak out when you were in an enclosed space for hours at a time. But the real test was an interview, an hour and a half interview with the selection committee. And that was ultimately what decided your fate. As long as you passed all the other tests, you know, it was really there that the astronauts sold themselves and it was also how the selection committee gauged whether or not they thought the person was right for the job and if they wanted the job. That was kind of a big part of it too. They didn't want to put all of this investment into somebody and then have them quit or leave the program.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Come on board because they met those requirements for the program. And so they found out that NASA was looking in the various ways that they found out. Each one has a unique story about that. And they sent in their application and they were invited to Houston for a week as part of the finalist group. And that's when they went through a wide array of interesting tasks. You know, there was definitely a slate of physical exams that just to make sure that they passed various physical requirements. They underwent a psych exam from what was described as a good cop and a bad cop routine. So there was a good cop psych who would ask you how you felt about your mother and what animal you would be if you were born an animal all over again.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Relaxing their requirements to be an astronaut. They were also making a concerted effort to open up the program to a much wider array of individuals. So they were specifically targeting people of color and women because they had done so poorly at getting those people into the program before. They also created a new role called the mission specialist. And so prior to this, it really was they were looking for people primarily with jet piloting experience, which was impossible for women to achieve back when they were first looking for astronauts because they were banned from flying jets for the military. They created this mission specialist role that was really geared towards researchers, scientists, engineers, people with advanced degrees in STEM. They were working on various payloads that would be on board the shuttle, deploying satellites, things of that nature. That made it easier for people like the women.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was thinking that when it came to the astronaut selection process, it was like this rigorous, very objective task and maybe they even had like an algorithm that spat out everybody's attributes. And while they did try to get as close as they could, they did have a bit of a point system. Yeah, I really did come down to an interview. For these specific astronauts, they were coming in at a time when NASA was somewhat”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Dictated kind of how they reacted to things. You know, they were obviously dealing with a lot of sexist comments and uneducated folks when it came to how to deal with pregnancy, for instance. And they really had to kind of keep their cool during this whole time, you know, the first women to do anything always have a bit of a microscope on them. And so less they be seen as difficult, they wanted to, you know, play by the rules as much as possible.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The bravado certainly didn't disappear when the women came on board. In fact, that was kind of an underlying theme of the entire time they were there is that they really were coming into this boys club culture. Back then, they really did not want to make a big deal of the fact that they were the first women. They were all about being one of the guys. And I think that's just kind of indicative. They didn't really have the luxury to highlight that they were different. It was all about fitting in as much as possible. There's a great point in the book where Anna and Sally sneak away to a department store to go pick up khaki shorts and polo t-shirts so that they could fit in like that's the unofficial uniform of the engineers at the time. You know, they don't want it to be a seamless in the organization as possible. That really was the kind of atmosphere that they were coming into. And that really...”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's been sort of a few of these books, movies, that reexamine this pivotal moment in American history, which is told mostly through the lens of swaggering, bravado, beating the Soviets, that whole thing. And then it turns out there's an array of folks who no one really talked about until recently that actually built the foundations of this program. Is that theme present in your book too? Flipping through it, it's in there, but then there are astronauts and they are the face of the thing. And so it just felt a little different. How did that play out as you were working on the book?”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure, and that's ultimately why I wanted to write the book. I really, for most of my life, only knew about Sally Ride. I feel like most people know that name, but if I asked who the second American woman in space was, I don't think a lot of people would know. I certainly didn't know until I started looking into this. And so, yeah, just to read off their kind of very brief bios, we have Sally Ride, who is the first American woman in space. She was an astrophysicist and former tennis player, followed by Judy Resnick, who was the second woman in space, also the first Jewish American to go into space, followed by Kathy Sullivan, first American woman to do a spacewalk, then Anna Fisher, the first mother to go into space, followed by Ray Sedden, and then Shannon Lucid. And Shannon Lucid was the sixth, but she also went on to fly longer in space than all of them. So she had a pretty storied career herself.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's called the six. It's about the first six women astronauts that NASA sent into space and it chronicles their lives, how they came to the space program and their inaugural flights with NASA. And it basically is set between the mid-70s and mid-80s when they came into the program, and it's capped off by the Challenger accident as one of the six was unfortunately on board for that accident.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Lauren Grush, you are the author of The Six The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts. You're also a space reporter at Bloomberg. And most importantly, you are a former Verge reporter. Welcome to Decoder.”
2023-09-12 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT