When the space age dawned in the late 1950s, Jackie Cochran held more flying records than any pilot of the 20th century—man or woman. Although Cochran was qualified to make the leap from atmosphere to orbit, it was Jerrie Cobb, 25 years her junior and a record-holding pilot in her own right, who took the same medical tests as the Mercury astronauts. In this dual biography, Amy Shira Teitel presents these women in all their glory and grit, as they pushed the issue all the way to Congress. Paperback, 446 pages.