In 1961, 13 women pilots secretly trained to become America’s first female astronauts. The International Women’s Air & Space Museum’s
Mercury Women: Forgotten Link to the Future exhibit chronicles their plight. But not their flight: After the ladies completed the very same rigid tests the Mercury 7 male astronauts passed, NASA pulled the plug on the project. Two years later, Russia sent a woman into space. This fascinating exhibit includes artifacts, biographies of the women (11 of whom are still alive), photos, and a wedding dress one of them made out of a parachute.
Mondays-Saturdays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., 2007
