This is an excerpt from my just-published paper Culture on the Moon: Bodies in Time and Space (Archaeologies 12(1):110-128
This was very much an arena where masculinity was defined for the future
of space. Automation and lack of control were equated with femininity. US
experts cited Valentina Tereshkova’s successful orbit in 1963 to mean that
the heavily automated Vostok vehicle did not require a skilled operator. MargaretWeitekamp argues that 'Demonstrating that a woman could perform
those tasks would diminish their prestige' (2004:3). So strong was this ideology
that the USA did not send a female astronaut into space until Sally Ride
became a crew member of the space shuttle Challenger for STS-7 in 1983.
By contrast, cosmonauts were the epitome of the ‘'new Soviet man’' (Gerovitch 2007), the ‘cog in the machine’ celebrated in Bolshevik political
and poetic imagination. Sergei Korolev, the leader of the Soviet space program,
was opposed to any active role for the cosmonauts, but as they, like
the astronauts, were drawn from a test pilot background, the battle to preserve
the aviation role of pilot was similarly played out. The unknowns
and technological constraints of creating a successful lunar mission led to
the development of similar human–machine interfaces and similar levels of
autonomy in both programs (Gerovitch 2007). At this level, at least, evidence
suggests that a hypothetical USSR lunar landing site might reflect
many similarities to the US series.
The Apollo 11 surface mission was highly choreographed and scripted
(NASA 1969), but at that point no person of Earth knew exactly what the experience
of being on the lunar surface would be like. In the gaps between the
script and the actual actions of the astronauts, there is a window where minds
and bodies express their individual and cultural differences. Where there was
choice, what did the astronauts choose to do? What determined those choices?
(Gorman 2016:122)
References
Gerovitch, S.
2007. ‘New Soviet Man’ Inside the Machine: Human Engineering, Spacecraft,
Design, and the Construction of Communism. Osiris 22:135–157.
NASA Lunar Surface Operations Office Mission Operations Branch Flight Crew
Support Division
1969. Apollo 11 Lunar Surface Operations Plan. Houston: Manned Spaceflight
Centre June 27, FINAL version of document.
Weitekamp, M.
2004. Right Stuff, Wrong Sex: America’s First Women in Space Program. John
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.