by First it was Rosie the riveter. Now, she meets Rosie the Rocketeer.
An icon from the WWII recruiting drive will be repurposed for spaceflight once again in the form of Rosie the Rocketeer, a fictional astronaut taking flight this week.
Rosie’s mission is to climb into the commander’s seat of Starliner, Boeing’s astronaut taxi, for Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2), an unmanned mission that will launch to the International Space Station on Thursday (June 19). may). She will be part of a larger mission to certify Starliner for human spaceflight, with the hope of starting carrying people later in 2022.
OFT-2 will be Rosie’s second spaceflight, after providing valuable test data during the first Starliner mission, OFT-1, in December 2019. While OFT-1 did not meet its goal of docking with the International Space Station , the 180-pound (82-kilogram) Rosie did her job, collecting flight data from 15 sensors to report how the stress of spaceflight affects astronauts.
“Rosie’s first flight provided hundreds of data points on what astronauts will experience during flight, but this time it will help maintain Starliner’s center of gravity during ascent, docking, undocking and landing,” Melanie said. Weber, leader of Boeing’s cargo and crew accommodation subsystem. on the commercial crew show, she said in a press release about Rosie in 2021.
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Rosie the Rocketeer’s namesake was inspired by a recruitment drive during World War II. With millions of American men serving abroad, the gap in the workforce was so great that an unprecedented courtship of women began. (Previously, women were discouraged from joining many types of factory work.)
Most Americans today recognize Rosie the Riveter from a number of posters, including one by J. Howard Miller with the tagline “We Can Do It!” released in 1942. There was also a song, “Rosie the Riveter”, released by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb around the same time. (Sample lyrics: “She’s making history / Working for the win / Rosie the Riveter.”)
That said, the Rosie we see today in Miller’s posters is not her original identity; she acquired the nickname later, partly by chance. The original Rosie appeared on the cover of the May 29, 1943 issue of “The Saturday Evening Post” magazine. On the cover, iconic artist Norman Rockwell depicted a riveter with the name “Rosie” on a nearby lunch box, according to the Department of Defense.
The US Department of Labor suggests that the transformation of Miller’s poster identity occurred in part because the owner of The Saturday Evening Post rejected all reprints of Rockwell’s cover, fearing claims of copyright infringement. Author. So instead reprints of Miller’s poster were produced, which had no such copyright concerns.
Regardless of Rosie’s origin story, the recruitment campaign served its purpose: “The campaign took millions of women out of the home and into the workforce,” the Labor Department added, though it did not mention that such gains were temporary. , as the men returned to work in 1945, regaining many of their original positions.
“To this day,” the department added, “Rosie the Riveter is still considered the most successful government advertising campaign in history.”
Rosie the Rocketeer will wear a blue space suit and a red polka dotted headscarf, the bandana will be a nod to the Miller poster. She will also don a face mask hand-sewn by Mae Krier, a “real-life Rosie” who built B-17 and B-29 planes at a Boeing factory in Seattle at age 17, Boeing said. Krier’s service extended from 1943 to 1945.
Krier, now 96, recently supported passage of the Rosie the Riveter Congressional Gold Medal Act through Congress, in partnership with Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey and Representative Brian Fitzpatrick. The act collectively awards a Congressional Gold Medal to all women who built aircraft, weapons, ammunition, and motor vehicles during World War II.
“When I began the important work of getting our Rosies recognized 30 years ago, I never gave up,” Krier said in a February 2021 Boeing statement. Krier’s autographed, hand-stitched Rosie the Riveter scarf will also fly with Rosie the Rocketeer in honor of all riveters like Krier.
Like many astronauts, Rosie has been looking forward to her OFT-2 flight for a while. Boeing pulled Starliner from the launch pad in August 2021 to address a valve issue, delaying the launch by more than eight months. With a solution in place for her and a slot now cleared for the Starliner launch, Rosie will be back on board to see space for a second time soon.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on twitter @Spacepointcom and in Facebook.
