When Joan was twelve, she had read a newspaper article mentioning the FLATs—First Lady Astronaut Trainees, involved in what was known as the Women in Space Program. That group of thirteen women had been privately tested and trained by William Randolph Lovelace II, the same physician who had helped select the Mercury program astronauts. He’d done it on his own, outside of NASA, in hopes that the organization might recognize the potential of female candidates.
