Netflix doc Mercury 13 tells the story of women who should have gone to space but couldn’t
When former NASA astronaut Eileen Collins was asked to pilot the Space Shuttle in 1995 — the first woman to do so — she invited 13 women to her launch.
Those 13 women, known as the Mercury 13, were all female pilots from the 1960s who had undergone the same physical and psychological tests as the men NASA selected as astronauts. But because of their gender, they never made it to space. Now, a Netflix documentary premiering today tells the stories of these kick-ass women, and the prejudice they had to endure to pursue their dreams. Mercury 13 is a telling reminder of all the barriers women have had to face to be considered as equal in the spaceflight industry.