AirSpaceMag.com

Maintaining F-86 Sabre jets in Korea, circa 1952-1954. (Photo by Richard Rash, SI 97-1357)

The Korean War often gets lost in the commemorative gap between World War II and Vietnam, but it was the first major conflict of the Jet Age, and has plenty of lore of its own. The war began 60 years ago this month, when North Korean forces crossed the 38th Parallel to invade South Korea.

Here’s a selection of Korean War readings from our June/July 2000 issue, which marked the 50th anniversary of the conflict.

Jerrie Cobb, one of the "Mercury 13," circa 1963. Courtesy NASM.

China has selected its first two female astronauts, Space.com recently reported. But, unlike their male counterparts, females have to be married. “We believe married women would be more physically and psychologically mature,” Zhang Jianqui, the former deputy commander of China’s spaceflight program, is quoted as saying.

The Guardian goes one step further: They’ve reported that in addition to being married, the women must be mothers in order to qualify for the space program. The story reports that “Officials are concerned that space flight might affect [the women’s] fertility.”

When will we be done with this malarkey?

For the record, Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova gave birth to a daughter one year after her 1963 flight. In Principles of Clinical Medicine for Space Flight (edited by Michael R. Barratt and Sam L. Pool in 2008), the authors note that 15 children have been born to 13 U.S. female astronauts who have completed at least one space flight.

If the Chinese are so concerned about the effects of space flight on reproduction, why aren’t male applicants required to be married with children?

During World War II, physicians believed that Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) shouldn’t fly during the “dysfunction of their menstrual cycle.” As Molly Merryman wrote in her history of the WASP, Clipped Wings, the Army Air Forces, after much study, concluded that menstruation had no effect on female pilots. But just a few years later, when a group of female pilots (usually referred to as “the Mercury 13”) was undergoing the physical tests for astronaut training, NASA wasn’t sure women could physically handle the demands of space. As journalist Martha Ackmann reported in The Mercury 13: The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight, some of the Mercury 13 “received advice from former WASPs about how to respond to the inevitable ‘menstruation question’ from physicians…. Women who served in the WASPs were so accustomed to hearing medical doctors voice concern about women flying during their menstrual periods that they developed their own response that allowed them to keep flying any time of the month. When asked by medical professionals, ‘How often do you get your period?’ many of the WASPs responded by saying they were ‘highly irregular.’ ”

Another reason given to keep U.S. women from being astronauts included the military’s assertion that partial pressure suits, worn by pilots and astronauts to survive high-altitude flight, couldn’t be adapted to fit the female form. (This despite that fact that David Clark, a major manufacture of pressure suits, designed them using women’s brassieres as a model.)

Ackmann includes the 1963 assessment of NASA psychologist Robert B. Voas, who felt the women-in-space program to be ridiculous: “As for the ladies’ alleged ability to withstand boredom and confinement better than the man, I think there might be a number of harried husbands who have sat through long evenings listening to the wife’s recitations of the day’s activities, who have credentials in the area of tolerance and boredom.”

And then there are the mind-numbing comments of Wernher von Braun, given in a 1962 speech on the Mississippi State College campus, on whether women should be in the space program: “Well, all I can say is that the male astronauts are all for it. And as my friend Bob Gilruth says, we’re reserving 110 pounds of payload for recreational equipment.”

With time running short for the space shuttle, NASA has come up with a way for the masses to journey with astronauts on the vehicle’s two remaining voyages. Granted, it’s still impossible to actually hitch a ride to orbit, but you can upload and send a picture of yourself into space through NASA’s “Face in Space” initiative.

It’s pretty simple: Just follow this link, pick a mission (STS-133 or STS-134), upload your image/name, print your confirmation page, then wait. Once the shuttle returns from orbit, you can print out a flight certificate signed by the mission commander.

Before launch, check out the participation map to see the number and location of fellow “Face in Space” travelers. In the course of one hour, I watched the total number jump from 133,405 to 133,672 participants worldwide. The United States had the most (58,170), while some countries like Greenland (9) had numbers in the single digits. As the launch dates get nearer (September 16^th for STS-133 and November for STS-134), the numbers are sure to increase.

The digital images will be electronically transferred from Mission Control to the shuttle after launch and uploaded to an onboard computer, where they will remain until the computer undergoes a standard memory cleanup. The pictures are not scheduled to be viewed by the astronauts during the flight, but at least they’ll be along for the ride.

(Movieposter.com)

CNN.com readers responded enthusiastically to a report of a flight attendant sitting in for an ill co-pilot with quotes from Airplane!

musishun Timmy, have you ever seen a grown man naked?

Zykman Get me Rex Kramer!

DBCOOPER1 you’re Kareem Abdul Jubbar! …..no I’m not , I’m Roger Murdock!

MadCityBabe “Captain, may I ask a question?”

“Sure, what is it?”

It’s an interrogative statement used to test knowledge, but that’s not important right now.”

JackTarazar “Excuse me, Stewardess. I speak Jive.”

Goss Ted Striker: Because of my mistake, six men didn’t return from that raid.

Elaine Dickinson: Seven. Lieutenant Zip died this morning.

Firefly5555 “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines.”

Zykman Rumack: How soon can you land?

Capt. Oveur: I can’t tell.

Rumack: You can tell me. I’m a doctor.

Capt. Oveur: No. I mean I’m just not sure.

Rumack: Can’t you take a guess?

Capt. Oveur: Well….not for another 2 hours.

Rumack: You can’t take a guess for another 2 hours?

Photo: JAXA

We had hoped that Japan’s IKAROS solar sail would work as advertised, and it did. Here’s an animated image of the fully deployed sail, taken by a “separation camera” from a short distance away.

In other happenings:

• The Hayabusa asteroid sample return capsule came home in spectacular style last week. Video here.
• Scientists on NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting mission have released a new batch of data, and now have 400 “objects of interest” that could turn out to be new planets. There’s some disagreement over whether the team should be able to hold on to the data until they’re sure, though.