Loren Grush on Nasa’s first female astronauts: ‘People thought they’d be a distraction to the men in space’

The science reporter reveals the astonishing truth behind the stories in her new book, The Six, which follows the first women inducted into Nasa’s astronaut programme in 1978

Your parents both worked on the space shuttle programme for decades, and you have gone on to write about Sally Ride, Anna Fisher, Judy Resnik, Shannon Lucid, Rhea Seddon and Kathy Sullivan – the first six American female astronauts. Were you always interested in space?
As a child growing up with two Nasa parents, I thought space was not cool at all. It wasn’t until I left my home town that I started to understand just how special my upbringing was. When I went into journalism, I realised that I was actually drawn to stories about space.

Nasa sent the first American man to space in 1961. The first American woman didn’t go up for another 22 years. Why the delay?
When Nasa was first created, the requirements were that you had to be able to be a jet pilot, but you couldn’t get jet pilot experience without being in the military. Women were banned from flying jets in the military. Nasa was so hellbent on getting to the moon that being inclusive and letting women into the programme was seen as a distraction. It went all the way up to Lyndon B Johnson. There is a memo of his where he writes “Stop this now” on a document related to getting women into the space programme.