Psychology of Space Exploration
At that time, lack of diversity at NASA was not limited to the astronaut corps.
In 1974, Congress held a hearing on NASA’s Equal Employment Opportunity
Program. The chairman’s introductory remarks included the statement “It is clear
that the NASA equal employment opportunity effort over the years has been inad-
equate... .”^75 In the congressional report, NASA admitted that as of the end of
fiscal year (FY) 1971, of all NASA employees, only 16.6 percent were women and
4.6 percent minorities.^76 Only 3 percent of the supervisors and 2.4 percent of the
engineers were women.
Kim McQuaid points out that many forces worked against increasing the pro-
portion of women and blacks at NASA.^77 Nationally, efforts to increase diversity
through new employment strategies began at about the same time as NASA flour-
ished in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Special hurdles at NASA included an
organizational culture that was built on the white-male stereotypes of the time
and demanded prior training and experience in science and engineering at a time
when very few women or minorities were earning (or were allowed to earn) degrees
in science and engineering. In 1973, then–NASA Administrator James Fletcher
hired Ruth Bates Harris as a high-level deputy director to oversee NASA’s equal
opportunity employment processes—but, when it turned out that she would be a
fearless leader rather than a compliant bureaucrat, he fired her and then, under
pressure, attempted to rehire her at a lower level. This initiated bad press, conflicts
with Congress, and a series of internal struggles that brought about diversification.
In the 1990s, Administrator Dan Goldin could complain that NASA was still too
male, pale, and stale, although, two decades earlier, NASA had responded to new
domestic political issues by changing from a civil rights sham to the beginnings of
a demonstrably effective, if imperfect, affirmative action program.
Aside from the 1965 selection cycle, when the National Academy of Sciences
handled selection and allowed women to apply (none were accepted), it was not
until the Shuttle era that women were added to the astronaut corps. On 16 January
- House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Constitutional
Rights, NASA’s Equal Opportunity Program, hearings before the Subcommittee on the Judiciary,
93rd Congress, 2nd session, 13–14 March 1974, p. 1. - Ibid., p. 13.
- Kim McQuaid, “Race, Gender and Space Exploration: A Chapter in the Social History of
the Space Age,” Journal of American Studies 41, no. 2 (2007): 405–434.