Liu Yang (astronaut)
Liu was selected for the crew of Shenzhou 9, the first manned mission to the Chinese space station Tiangong 1, along with Jing Haipeng, the first repeat Chinese space traveller, and Liu Wang. Liu became the first female Chinese astronaut to go into space. The mission was launched on June 16, 2012, 49 years to the day after the first female space traveller, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was launched. During this manned space mission, Liu performed experiments in space medicine.
Women in aviation
In 1960, Olga Tarling became the first woman air traffic controller in Australia and Yvonne Pope Sintes and Frankie O'Kane become the first female British air traffic controllers. That same year, Alia Menchari became the first woman Tunisian pilot. In 1961, Lucille Golas attained the first pilot license for a woman in Guyana to assist her husband in his mining business. Asegedech Assefa became the first Ethiopian woman to earn a pilot's license in 1962. That same year, Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to fly a jet across the Atlantic Ocean.
A privately funded project, of William Lovelace, the Woman in Space Program recruited women pilots in the U.S. to test them for suitability for the space program. Thirteen of the recruits passed NASA's physical requirements. Scheduled for additional testing, the United States Navy canceled use of their facilities as there were no NASA officials involved. Public hearings were held by a special Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics in 1962. Because NASA required all astronauts to attain an engineering degree and be graduates of military jet piloting test programs, none of the women could meet the entry prerequisites. The subcommittee took no action after the hearing. The following year, Valentina Tereshkova, an amateur Russian parachute jumper became the first woman in space.