lovelace and flickinger had found their exceptional female pilot. when lovelace later revealed the astonishing results of cobb's test scores at a scientific conference in stockholm, reporters began calling cobb's parents in the middle of the night, trying to track down the taciturn the young woman the media instantly dubbed america's first woman astronaut. the past year had been a whirlwind for cobb and now she held another confidence. dr. lovelace had just begun to test 12 more women pilots and she had helped select them. the first candidate had already arrived in albuquerque at the lovelace foundation and more women would soon follow that spring and summer. all the women had been pledged to secrecy, but cobb knew their identities and she consider them exceptional pilots and ideal test subjects. there were identical twins from california, jan and marion dietrich. the youngster, 22-year-old mary wallace, from to us, new mexico. the owner of a flight operation in michigan, bernie steadman, the air force reserve officer from akron, jean hickson, the f