“That’s fine. Square root? To five decimals … if applicable.”
At least I wasn’t the only one who was nervous. “62.07459.”
Sabiha G ök çen paced back and forth, shaking her wrists out. She kept touching her hair as if she’d be happier to have it back in a ponytail instead of the bouffant it had been teased into.
“What is the optimal pitchover angle for the gravity turn when entering low Earth orbit?”
“Gravity turn … With what rocket engine and config uration? And what should the final altitude be?” Bless him for trying to keep me distracted.
“Jupiter class, with a dual-Sirius engine. Final altitude would be—”
He probably said more than that, but Clemons walked onto the stage and through the curtains. The uproar from the audience rose to critical. I closed my eyes and swallowed and swallowed and breathed through my nose and swallowed down the bitter acid that coated the back of my tongue. Not now. Not now not now not now …
Nathaniel breathed into my ear. “1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9—”
“That’s wrong.” I clung to him. “The Fibonacci sequence adds the prior number to the current one, so it should be 3, 5, 8, 13 … Oh. Clever man.”
“I can do more bad math, if that will help.” He gave me a squeeze and stepped back to look at me. “Just remember that the astronauts get to fly T-33s.”
I snorted. “Here I thought you were going to tell me to remember that you loved me.”
“Eh. You know that. But a T-33? A jet? I know where I stand in relation to—”
“Elma! We’re up.” Nicole grabbed my hand and pulled me with her to the stage.
T-33s. Even as an astronaut candidate, I would get to fly a T-33 jet aircraft. As we walked onto the stage, I tried to hold the image of the cockpit in my head. The flashes going off were just lightning. I could keep this steady, and hold the course.
That image lasted long enough for me to make it to the table with the other women. They had us seated in front, with the men standing in two rows behind us like a frame. This was just another interview. It was just like the ones I’d given before. I’d even been trained this time.
3.14159265359 …
T-33. Teeeeeeeeeee-thirty-three. Astronaut. Astronaut. Astronaut. T-33.
“Dr. York? What does your husband think about your new occupation?” came a voice from the front row.
The speaker was a man with a rumpled gray suit surrounded by nearly identical men with rumpled gray suits. I had no idea that reporters had uniforms. Nicole kicked me under the table.
I was taking too long to respond. “He’s been very supportive. In fact, he was backstage waiting with us before we came out.”
Clemons pointed to another reporter in the ubiquitous gray suit. “Why do you all want to beat a man to the moon?”
Nicole leaned into the microphone. “I don’t want to beat a man to the moon. I want to go to the moon for the same reason men want to go. Women can do a useful job in space. We aren’t in a contest to beat men in anything.”
Thank God for her. That was a great answer. Granted, there was one man I would happily beat to the moon, but mostly, I just wanted us to get there.
“What are you going to cook in space?”
“Science.” The word popped out of my mouth before I thought about it, and the room rewarded me with a laugh. “Followed by a nice healthy dinner of kerosene and liquid oxygen.”
Betty leaned into the microphone. “And without gravity, I’m looking forward to souffl és that won’t fall.”
That line got a bigger laugh than mine, and pencils scribbled across notepads. Clemons pointed to another reporter. I stopped trying to identify them in the crowd, because their questions were all just the same inanity, and none of them had questions for the men.
“What about your beauty regimen in space? Will you be able to use hairspray?”
Sabiha shook her head. “We will be in a pure oxygen environment. Hairspray would be foolish.”
That list of questions that they had prepared for us? We got none of them. They’d have been better off giving us a coach for beauty contestants. The only thing they were missing was asking us how we would bring about world peace.
Behind me, the men shifted weight and I heard one of them mutter, “What about bra size?”
“Does the IAC have any plans to include men or women of color in the space program?” The man who asked the question looked white, with close-cropped dark curls. His suit was not rumpled, and he held himself with exquisite posture.
I swiveled in my seat to watch Clemons. He kept his smile fixed in place and raised a hand, as if he had a cigar in it. Changing the gesture into a wave of dismissal, he said, “The astronaut program is open to anyone who qualifies, but due to the nature of the mission, our standards are very high. These ladies are the best pilots on the planet. Best lady pilots. Naturally, our new male candidates are also outstanding, and our focus today should be on these fine men and women. I don’t want to hog their spotlight.”
“Then I’ll ask the ladies a question.” The man turned to stare at the stage, finding each of us with his clear hazel gaze. “Would any of you object to serving with a black woman in space?”
Everyone froze a little. It felt like a trick question. I leaned toward the mic. “I would be delighted, and know several black women who are brilliant pilots.”
Betty recovered next. “I wouldn’t object, of course, so long as the standards aren’t lowered.”
Being angry always helps control my anxiety. Ida could outfly Betty. Imogene was a better pilot than me. And goodness knows Violette shouldn’t even be on the stage. “We wouldn’t have to lower the standards.”
“Now, ladies…” Clemons stepped toward us, dragging his microphone with him. “Let’s move on to the question that people keep writing in to ask. Which of you will be the first one in space?”
As we’d been coached, all of us raised our hands. Nicole raised both, just like Parker had. Me? I didn’t really care who was first, so long as I got to go.
THIRTY-THREE
TWO WHO MAY LAND ON THE MOON SELECTED
IAC Names Men Who May Land on the Moon
KANSAS CITY, KS, July 2, 1957—Today the International Aerospace Coalition named the two astronauts who may become the first humans to set foot on the moon. They are Col. Stetson Parker of the United States, and Capt. Jean-Paul Lebourgeois of France, both veterans of the space program. Today, they and Lt. Estevan Terrazas of Spain were named as the crew of Artemis 9, which may go to the moon and back in April of next year.
They separated the astronaut candidates into two classes. The men were together for one, and the women for the other. I will admit that the first class they put us into made me a little complacent. Orbital mechanics. That was most of what I had done in the computer department.
The other women responded with varying degrees of success. Violette picked it up faster than I had expected. Nicole struggled with basic math and kept forgetting to take the square root or where the decimal place was supposed to be on the slide rule. I helped her where I could, but since I’ve never struggled with math, it was hard to figure out what to tell her. I just … I just did it.
Betty went through the motions, but I think she knew she wasn’t going to actually get into space. Maybe she didn’t even want to.
Sabiha worked her way through the orbital mechanics lessons with uneven progress, but iron determination. Jacira got it, but also hated it. She frequently muttered under her breath in Portuguese. I didn’t speak the language, but I can recognize cursing.
When we turned in our first homework assignment, it was like flashing back to being in fourth grade again. The instructor looked mine over and shook his head. “Elma … did Dr. York help you with this?”
The room went red and then seemed to cool to freezing. I half-expected my breath to steam white. “No. He didn’t.”
“It’s just … you only have the answers listed here.” He smiled, and his spe
ctacles flashed white in a beam of sunlight. “It’s okay to get help, but I still need you to do all the work.”
It really was just like fourth grade. Only this time, I wasn’t going to have to wait, sobbing in the office, for my father to come and rescue me. I’d been too young then to know that there was a simple way to prove that I hadn’t cheated on a test.
“I understand your concern, so please, ask me any question that you’d like, and I’ll answer it. Right now.”
He tapped the papers together on the desk with a sharp rap. “We don’t have time for you to work through an equation. Next time, just do the work.”
I ground my teeth together. He wanted me to write out all the in-between steps instead of just solving the equation? Fine. I could take the time to do that, and he could take the time to grade it. I knew how this conversation went. It had happened too many times for me not to know, and I had been an idiot to think that my time at the IAC would count for anything. “Yes, sir.”
At that, Nicole stared at me, then raised her hand, smiling. “Excuse me, sir?”
“Yes, Nicole?”
“Elma wrote most of those equations.”
He sighed. “Thank you, Nicole. I know she wrote the answers. But I needed her to do the work to find them.”
She put her hand on her chest and widened her eyes. “Oh, goodness me. I’m so silly. I just—”
I cleared my throat before Nicole could go full debutante on him. “What she means, sir, is that in my work at the computer department at the IAC, I originated a good portion of the equations in last night’s homework, and the ones that I didn’t write, I’ve used on a daily basis for the past four years.”
He blinked. “Oh.” He set the pages down and smoothed them. “I see. That would have been useful information to know earlier.”
* * *
Between dozing through the orbital mechanics classes, we also had advanced pilot training. We were often broken into groups of three and sent to different facilities to use simulators or specialized equipment. Some of it was old hat, like the “Dilbert Dunker,” which I’d done for flight school as part of the WASPs.
But there were some unexpected twists. When I showed up for the Dilbert Dunker with Jacira and Betty, they gave us swimsuits.
Specifically, they gave us little blue bikinis.
In the dressing room, I held up the skimpy material and frowned. “Last time I took this test, we had to do it in a flight suit.”
Jacira shrugged and unbuttoned her blouse. “I have learned not to be surprised at what Americans do.”
“Don’t look at me.” Betty pulled her blouse off over her head. “I didn’t do any advanced training when I was in the WASPs.”
Jacira and I exchanged a glance. The application had required four hundred hours in high-performance aircraft. I didn’t know how they did things in Brazil, but skipping that as a WASP would have been a surprising lack.
Regardless of my training, I had a choice of wearing the bikini or doing the test in my clothes, so I pulled the scraps of fabric up and did my best to make sure that they covered everything they were supposed to cover. Maybe they were going to give us the flight suit when we got out of the locker room.
Betty finished changing first, and headed out of the dressing room. She stopped right outside the bathroom door, then turned around and came back in. “Elma?”
“Yes?” I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my midriff in a vague attempt at modesty.
“There are reporters here.” Strain tightened her face. “I didn’t call them.”
Nodding, I continued to secure the towel, as if it took all my attention. “Thank you for the warning.”
The Miltown in my purse whispered promises of calm, but I was about to go through underwater training. I couldn’t afford to have my reflexes slowed even a little.
Scowling, Betty strode to her bag and pulled out a tube of lipstick. “Goddamn it. What part of ‘exclusive’ don’t they understand?”
Rolling her eyes, Jacira pulled her long, dark hair back into a ponytail. “They are about to dunk us underwater. Many times. And you are put on lipstick?”
Betty shrugged. “With the bikinis, it’s pretty clear what kind of a test this is going to be. I aim to pass, ’cause I sure as hell ain’t going to pass orbital mechanics.”
I almost went out the door as I was. I was a physicist and a computer and a pilot, not a pinup girl. And yet … and yet, I could hear Mama saying, What will people think? She had always been on me to “gussy up” a little. I knew what the rules were for women. “Goddamn it.”
Turning back to my bag, I slammed it open and dug through it to find my own tube of lipstick. The pill case rattled in the bottom of the bag, and I hesitated over it. No. I needed my reflexes fast for this test. I’d survived the press conference, and for most of the trial, there would be thousands of gallons of water between me and the reporters.
The silver lipstick tube gleamed in a corner of my bag. It was slick beneath my fingers. I pulled the lid off, twisted it, and applied a thick red coat to my lips. The makeup ladies at Mr. Wizard would be so proud.
Jacira watched and shook her head. “No. This is not why my country sent me.”
“It’s not why I’m here either.” I capped the tube and straightened. “But lipstick won’t keep me from doing my job.”
Betty snorted. “Wearing lipstick practically is my job.”
“You don’t really…”
“Yep.” She surveyed herself in the mirror and dropped her lipstick back in the bag. “I didn’t have the flight hours to make the first cut, but Life was able to pull some strings to get me into the testing. After that? That’s been all me, but I still owe the devil their due.”
Given a choice, would I have made the same bargain? Oh yes. Yes, I would have. “Well. Shall we face the devil?”
“Heh. Most of these are just minor demons.” She strutted toward the door. “Wait until Life hears about this. Then you’ll see the devil incarnate.”
I followed her to the door and thanked God for the towel. Cameras snapped and flashes went off as the three of us made our way to the Dilbert Dunker. And I had my first heart-sinking moment of realizing that Betty was right.
Let Betty pose for the camera. I focused on the actual test. The Dilbert Dunker sat at the deep end of the pool, up on a stand. The bright red metal cage had a pilot seat inside and sat poised above a set of rails that led into the pool. Ah … I’d spent so many hours learning to escape a water landing that it seemed almost nostalgic.
The problem was that training for an underwater escape began in the pool, outside the Dunker, with an obstacle course. They hadn’t set one up. They were going to start us with the Dunker. We were being set up to fail.
The Navy test admins turned around to watch us. Or, more accurately, to watch Betty.
I could hardly blame them. How did she manage to sway like that without coming out of the bikini? The fabric was blue, but you could see it turning red just from the heat of her walk.
She stopped in front of the Navy officers with Jacira and me at her back, making an impromptu triangle. “So … who wants to dunk me?”
* * *
They had to pull Betty out of the cage. Mind you, this wasn’t unusual for a first attempt, even with proper training. The thing dropped down a rail at a fifty-degree angle, hit freezing water, and then flipped you upside down. You had to unstrap yourself and escape the cage and they had blinders over your eyes, so you were doing it all by feel.
This is why Navy divers were in the pool as a matter of course. Still, I will admit to a certain amount of petty satisfaction at seeing Betty pulled out of the pool like a drowned cat. They wrapped her in a blanket and set her down on a bench while they reset the machine. My satisfaction turned to shame as I watched her shiver. I remembered my first attempt at the Dunker.
I turned to the Navy officer in charge. “Shall I go next?”
He did not quite roll his eyes, but it was close. �
��Sure. Why not. Let’s send all of you in.”
And this was what they called training … Trying not to growl, I clambered up the ladder to the Dunker’s cage. Here, I had to let go of my towel, and the last scrap of modesty my mother had instilled.
As it dropped, flashes went off from the bevy of reporters stationed around the pool. I lowered myself into the cage and nearly shrieked.
The cage was metal. Including the seat. It had been in a pool of frigid water. I was wearing a bikini.
I definitely squeaked, but managed to keep it from being more than that. Still, it was one more reason to wish I were wearing a flight suit.
The officer lowered the harness over my shoulders. The cold, damp canvas pressed against my bare flesh as he helped me get buckled in. “All right, sweetheart. This is going to drop into the water and turn upside down. Your job is to not panic until the divers pull you out.”
“I thought my job was to release myself and swim clear.” I ran my hands over the buckle, trying to memorize its position.
“Right. That’s what I meant.” He slapped the top of the cage and stood up.
I leaned out. “Blinders?”
He hesitated and knelt back down. “You done this before?”
“I was a WASP.” Of course, Betty had been too, but I’d flown high-performance aircraft. “Ferried Mustangs and most of the fighter planes, so they sent me to Ellington to train.”
“Huh.” He drummed his fingers on the edge of the cage, then leaned in close. “Okay. Listen. They aren’t giving you dames the blinders. We were told to just go through the motions. You want to do this for real?”
I stared at him for a moment. Just go through the motions? They weren’t going to put any of us into space.
Somehow, I managed to unlock my jaw. “They have me wearing a bikini, but I’m a goddamned pilot. Yes, I want to do this for real.”
“Hot damn.” He slapped the metal and stood again, leaning over into the control chamber. In a moment, he was back with the black goggles. “Don’t drown, hear?”
The Calculating Stars Page 30
