NASA's Lost Female Astronauts

In the late 1950s, the United States government contemplated training women as astronauts. Donald Kilgore, a doctor who evaluated both male and female space flight candidates at the Lovelace Clinic, a mid-century center of aeromedical research said 'They came out better than the men in many categories.'

The clinic's founder, Randy Lovelace, developed the health assessments used to select the Mercury 7 team, and thought that women might make competent astronauts. But Lovelace was practical: Women are lighter than men, requiring less fuel to transport them into space. They're also less prone to heart attacks, and Lovelace considered them better-suited for the claustrophobic isolation of space.

So why were there no females on Apollo 11? NASA officials were concerned, among other things, about women's inexperience flying experimental military aircraft. Eventually, the US government expressed no support for the program.