The astronaut wives club
To be an astronaut’s wife meant tea with Jackie Kennedy, high-society galas, and instant celebrity. It meant smiling perfectly after a makeover by Life magazine, balancing a lacquered rocket-style hairdo, and teetering in high heels at the crux of the space age.
The astronaut wives [of the 1950s and 1960s] were ordinary housewives, most of them military wives living in drab housing on Navy and Air Force bases. But when their husbands, the best test pilots in the country, were chosen to man America’s audacious adventure to beat the Russians in the space race, they suddenly found themselves very much in the public eye.
This diverse group of women, over coffee and cigarettes, champagne and cocktails, tea and Tupperware, society balls and splashdown parties, shared laughter and tears, triumph and tragedy as their husbands streaked through space.COVER GIRLS
What would they wear for the Life magazine photo shoot? The wives discussed it endlessly on the phone, starting the astronaut-wife tradition of the round-robin phone call, a party line that would stretch throughout the space race.
Life photographer Ralph Morse set the ladies up in a pleasing arrangement, positioning them on the metal apron of the red model of the Mercury capsule their husbands would ride into space. This very capsule had recently been dropped into the Atlantic and survived.
The wives looked like scoops of ice cream around an upside-down cone. Just as NASA and Life had ordered, they were all in their pressed pastel shirtwaists, white and pale blue and – roses? Scott Carpenter’s wife Rene had astonished the others by wearing red heels and a bold dress, blooming with red roses. Actually, Rene’s dress matched the space capsule perfectly. How could the Life editors not be amused?
‘Louise! Louise, you home?’
She came into the room. ‘You got it! You got the first ride!’ She could tell by his smile. He hugged her, squeezing her so hard she nearly squealed. ‘Lady, you can’t tell anyone, but you have your arms around the man who’ll be the fi rst in space!’
‘Who let a Russian in here?’ was Louise’s naughty reply.
As planned, Alan fell safely back to Earth 15 minutes after he had blasted off , dropping in his capsule into the Atlantic. After NASA called Louise to tell her that Alan was safely aboard the USS Champlain, a Navy jet flew over her house making an S in its contrail.
Louise stepped out of her house, pink sweater draped around her slight shoulders, and met the press, kicking off another new Astrowife ritual – the post-fl ight press conference on the lawn.
Though still not thrilled that their own husbands hadn’t been picked to go up first, the other wives did have to admit that Louise made a wonderful First Lady of Space.
‘Are you going to feed Wally steak and cake when he gets home?’ asked the hungry press.
Jo just stared at the newsmen in bewilderment. She didn’t even bake. All Wally wanted when he got to Earth was a smoke.
‘My view of the Moon was so much better than what you can see from Earth,’ Wally explained to his mother-in-law. He happily reported to his son Marty: ‘The Moon is not made out of green cheese.’
It had been a long, long day, and now it was almost morning and Wally was in his pyjamas, finally ready for bed. Jo asked him, ‘Wally, will you please take out the garbage?’ He was fully down to Earth at last.
NASA had installed a ‘squawk box’ in Pat’s house, an amazing space-age device that let her tune in to the transmissions going on between Ed in orbit and Mission Control. The mission would take four days, so along with the box in her living room, NASA had installed one in her bedroom so that she could go to sleep listening to her Ed, coordinating her own sleep schedule in Texas with his in space, and wishing him sweet dreams.
Of course, there were limits. She’d been told that in case of an emergency, NASA would shut the box off , so Pat knew things were going all right as long as it squawked.
As she chewed on a pencil one day, the doorbell rang and she was presented with a beautiful bouquet of gladioli from Ed. He had timed the delivery to only a few minutes before he took his first step into space.
In one of her columns, Rene tackled the dynamic of the original group of seven wives. ‘Now at a call we run across lawns with uncombed hair, drive at unsafe speeds to hug and hold, make coffee, fix a drink and wipe the kitchen counter.’
Fan letters started pouring into Rene’s mailbox. She was writing three columns a week. It was hard, rewarding work. Editors around the country admired her unique voice. Soon 35 papers picked up her column. There was a thumbnail-sized picture of her next to her byline.
Talk-show host David Susskind invited Rene to be on his show. He asked Rene about being an astronaut wife, how she’d coped. Rene slipped into her Primly Stable role [her ironic parody of the perfect Astrowife], and Susskind loved it. She was such a smash that people wondered if she might host her own show. Certainly her personality could carry one. In December 1966, Neil Simon’s The Star-Spangled Girl opened on Broadway. The title character had actually been inspired by Rene.
‘Eclipsing the Astronauts’ headlined a Newsweek feature.
The wives of the Project Mercury astronauts, by a mock-up of a Mercury capsule
At the reunion, a huge amount of pain was expressed and exorcised, and the friendship shared by the wives during their space programme days in Houston was rekindled with a deeper intimacy and honesty, and continues today.
That night, the women all gathered round in robes and pyjamas and slippers, and talked until dawn. Pretty soon they got the giggles and started telling stories – laughing about their men. Laughter had always buoyed them through the hardest parts of their missions. And it would continue to lift them in the years to come.
Extracted from The Astronaut Wives Club, by Lily Koppel, published by Headline, priced £16.99.
The astronaut wives [of the 1950s and 1960s] were ordinary housewives, most of them military wives living in drab housing on Navy and Air Force bases. But when their husbands, the best test pilots in the country, were chosen to man America’s audacious adventure to beat the Russians in the space race, they suddenly found themselves very much in the public eye.
This diverse group of women, over coffee and cigarettes, champagne and cocktails, tea and Tupperware, society balls and splashdown parties, shared laughter and tears, triumph and tragedy as their husbands streaked through space.
COVER GIRLS
What would they wear for the Life magazine photo shoot? The wives discussed it endlessly on the phone, starting the astronaut-wife tradition of the round-robin phone call, a party line that would stretch throughout the space race. Life photographer Ralph Morse set the ladies up in a pleasing arrangement, positioning them on the metal apron of the red model of the Mercury capsule their husbands would ride into space. This very capsule had recently been dropped into the Atlantic and survived.
The wives looked like scoops of ice cream around an upside-down cone. Just as NASA and Life had ordered, they were all in their pressed pastel shirtwaists, white and pale blue and – roses? Scott Carpenter’s wife Rene had astonished the others by wearing red heels and a bold dress, blooming with red roses. Actually, Rene’s dress matched the space capsule perfectly. How could the Life editors not be amused?
THE FIRST LADY OF SPACE
Alan Shepard strode into the house, looking into the living room where his wife Louise liked to sit on the carpet and play solitaire.‘Louise! Louise, you home?’
She came into the room. ‘You got it! You got the first ride!’ She could tell by his smile. He hugged her, squeezing her so hard she nearly squealed. ‘Lady, you can’t tell anyone, but you have your arms around the man who’ll be the fi rst in space!’
‘Who let a Russian in here?’ was Louise’s naughty reply.
As planned, Alan fell safely back to Earth 15 minutes after he had blasted off , dropping in his capsule into the Atlantic. After NASA called Louise to tell her that Alan was safely aboard the USS Champlain, a Navy jet flew over her house making an S in its contrail.
Louise stepped out of her house, pink sweater draped around her slight shoulders, and met the press, kicking off another new Astrowife ritual – the post-fl ight press conference on the lawn.
Though still not thrilled that their own husbands hadn’t been picked to go up first, the other wives did have to admit that Louise made a wonderful First Lady of Space.
BACK TO EARTH
After Wally Schirra’s successful splashdown in the Pacific, his wife Jo stepped outside for her post-flight press conference.‘Are you going to feed Wally steak and cake when he gets home?’ asked the hungry press.
Jo just stared at the newsmen in bewilderment. She didn’t even bake. All Wally wanted when he got to Earth was a smoke.
‘My view of the Moon was so much better than what you can see from Earth,’ Wally explained to his mother-in-law. He happily reported to his son Marty: ‘The Moon is not made out of green cheese.’
It had been a long, long day, and now it was almost morning and Wally was in his pyjamas, finally ready for bed. Jo asked him, ‘Wally, will you please take out the garbage?’ He was fully down to Earth at last.
FLOWERS FROM SPACE
On 3 June 1965, Pat White sat on her bed and watched her husband Ed taking off with his Gemini space twin, Jim McDivitt.NASA had installed a ‘squawk box’ in Pat’s house, an amazing space-age device that let her tune in to the transmissions going on between Ed in orbit and Mission Control. The mission would take four days, so along with the box in her living room, NASA had installed one in her bedroom so that she could go to sleep listening to her Ed, coordinating her own sleep schedule in Texas with his in space, and wishing him sweet dreams.
Of course, there were limits. She’d been told that in case of an emergency, NASA would shut the box off , so Pat knew things were going all right as long as it squawked.
As she chewed on a pencil one day, the doorbell rang and she was presented with a beautiful bouquet of gladioli from Ed. He had timed the delivery to only a few minutes before he took his first step into space.
ECLIPSING THE ASTRONAUTS
Rene had been off ered a syndicated newspaper column, exploring what it meant to be a wife, a mother – friendships, relationships, that sort of thing.In one of her columns, Rene tackled the dynamic of the original group of seven wives. ‘Now at a call we run across lawns with uncombed hair, drive at unsafe speeds to hug and hold, make coffee, fix a drink and wipe the kitchen counter.’
Fan letters started pouring into Rene’s mailbox. She was writing three columns a week. It was hard, rewarding work. Editors around the country admired her unique voice. Soon 35 papers picked up her column. There was a thumbnail-sized picture of her next to her byline.
Talk-show host David Susskind invited Rene to be on his show. He asked Rene about being an astronaut wife, how she’d coped. Rene slipped into her Primly Stable role [her ironic parody of the perfect Astrowife], and Susskind loved it. She was such a smash that people wondered if she might host her own show. Certainly her personality could carry one. In December 1966, Neil Simon’s The Star-Spangled Girl opened on Broadway. The title character had actually been inspired by Rene.
‘Eclipsing the Astronauts’ headlined a Newsweek feature.
The wives of the Project Mercury astronauts, by a mock-up of a Mercury capsuleREUNION
In the autumn of 1991, the astronaut wives, from all the diff erent groups, met for the first big reunion since the end of the Apollo programme. Their get-together in Deer Valley resembled a launch party from the ‘good old days’: an expression that was truer than not, though it still caused some eyes to roll.At the reunion, a huge amount of pain was expressed and exorcised, and the friendship shared by the wives during their space programme days in Houston was rekindled with a deeper intimacy and honesty, and continues today.
That night, the women all gathered round in robes and pyjamas and slippers, and talked until dawn. Pretty soon they got the giggles and started telling stories – laughing about their men. Laughter had always buoyed them through the hardest parts of their missions. And it would continue to lift them in the years to come.
Extracted from The Astronaut Wives Club, by Lily Koppel, published by Headline, priced £16.99.