05/18/2026
She won the International Aerobatic Championship three times, broke speed records on land, and passed NASA's astronaut tests. They still wouldn't let her fly to space.
Betty Skelton was eight years old when she convinced her parents to let her take her first airplane ride.
She was hooked instantly. Not just interested—obsessed. Flying wasn't a hobby. It was everything.
By age twelve, she was taking flying lessons. At sixteen, in 1942, she flew solo for the first time.
Betty immediately set her sights on becoming a WASP—a Women Airforce Service Pilot. During World War II, WASPs flew military aircraft for the U.S. Army Air Forces, freeing up male pilots for combat duty.
But there was a problem: you had to be eighteen and a half to join.
By the time Betty turned eighteen and a half, WWII had ended. The WASP program was disbanded in December 1944.
She'd missed her chance by months.
So Betty took a job as a clerk at Eastern Airlines—one of the few aviation jobs open to women in the 1940s. She continued flying on her own time, increasingly frustrated that commercial airlines wouldn't hire women as pilots.
Then her father organized a local air show to raise money for charity. Someone suggested Betty perform some aerobatic maneuvers.
Betty had never done aerobatics. She had two weeks to learn.
With help from an experienced aerobatic pilot, she mastered loops and rolls in those two weeks. Then she performed them publicly at the air show.
The crowd went wild.
Betty had found her new path: aerobatic flying.
In 1946, at age 20, she bought her first aerobatic plane—a beat-up Great Lakes biplane she found in pieces behind a hangar. "It was a real crate," she said later. "It had crashed and was in pieces. It was not nearly as manageable as a true aerobatic plane should be."
She didn't care. She rebuilt it and flew it anyway.
Betty's approach to aerobatics was obsessive. She practiced for hours every day, perfecting maneuvers that most pilots wouldn't attempt. Her signature move became the inverted ribbon cut—flying upside down just ten feet off the ground to cut a ribbon strung between two poles with her plane's vertical stabilizer.
The physical toll was brutal. She often landed with black eyes, bruises, and facial blotches from the extreme G-forces. But Betty refused to quit.
"It is not easy to be the best," she said. "You must have the courage to bear pain, disappointment, and heartbreak. You must learn how to face danger and understand fear, yet not be afraid."
In 1948, Betty won the International Aerobatic Championship.
Then she won it again in 1949.
And again in 1950.
Three consecutive championships. At age 24, Betty Skelton was the best aerobatic pilot in the world.
In 1951, she set a light plane altitude record, reaching 29,050 feet—nearly six miles high—in a small aircraft.
But the victories came with devastating losses. Betty watched friends and fellow pilots die in crashes. "One of the hard things about flying the aerobatic circuit was enduring the pain of watching friends die," she later reflected. "At times it felt like a waiting game. I wondered who would be next."
In 1951, after her altitude record, Betty retired from competitive aerobatic flying. She was 25 years old and had achieved everything there was to achieve in aerobatics.
Most people would have been satisfied. Betty got bored.
So she switched to auto racing.
In the 1950s, Betty set multiple land speed records at Daytona Beach. She drove Corvettes, dragsters, and eventually jet-powered cars to speeds that terrified experienced male drivers.
In 1956, she became the first woman to drive a jet-powered car over 300 mph.
She also set a women's land speed record of 156.99 mph.
Betty Skelton—5 feet 1 inch tall, 100 pounds—was conquering both air and land speed records in an era when women were barely allowed to have careers at all.
Then, in 1960, came the opportunity that should have changed everything.
NASA was selecting astronauts for the Mercury program. Betty Skelton had heard the rumors: they might consider women.
She underwent the same rigorous physical and psychological testing that the Mercury Seven astronauts had completed. The same tests that John Glenn, Alan Shepard, and Gus Grissom had passed.
Betty passed too.
She endured the isolation tank. The centrifuge that simulated extreme G-forces. The psychological evaluations. The endless physical tests designed to find any weakness.
She passed everything.
Look Magazine even ran a feature about Betty's astronaut testing with the headline "Should a Girl Be First in Space?"
But NASA had never seriously considered selecting her. The testing was essentially a publicity stunt—a way to show they'd "explored" the idea of female astronauts before dismissing it.
The official reason? NASA required astronaut candidates to be military test pilots. Women weren't allowed to be military test pilots. Therefore, women couldn't be astronauts.
It was circular logic designed to exclude women while appearing to be based on "objective" qualifications.
Betty Skelton—who had won three International Aerobatic Championships, set altitude records, passed every physical test NASA could throw at her—was disqualified because of her gender.
She watched as men with less flying experience than her went to space while she was permanently grounded.
The rejection could have broken her. Instead, Betty pivoted again.
She became an automotive journalist and advertising consultant, working with major car manufacturers. She continued setting speed records. She became a respected voice in motorsports.
In later years, she was inducted into the International Aerobatic Hall of Fame, the National Aviation Hall of Fame, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America. She became the first woman inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.
Betty Skelton died in July 2011 at age 84.
In 2019, eight years after her death, Mattel created a Betty Skelton Hot Wheels car—a tribute to a woman who had spent her life going faster than anyone thought possible.
But here's what makes Betty's story both inspiring and infuriating:
She did everything right. She worked harder than anyone. She won every championship. She broke every record. She passed every test.
And it still wasn't enough.
Not for the WASPs—she was too young when the program ended.
Not for commercial airlines—they wouldn't hire female pilots in the 1940s.
Not for NASA—they wouldn't even seriously consider female astronauts in 1960.
Betty Skelton could have been one of the first astronauts in space. She had the skills, the courage, the test results proving she was qualified.
Instead, that honor went to men who weren't necessarily more qualified—they just had the right gender.
The first American woman in space was Sally Ride in 1983. By then, Betty Skelton was 57 years old.
Imagine what Betty could have accomplished if the doors that were slammed in her face had been open instead.
Imagine if airlines had hired her as a commercial pilot in 1944.
Imagine if NASA had actually selected qualified women for the Mercury program in 1960.
Betty Skelton spent her entire life proving she was as good as—and often better than—male pilots and drivers. She succeeded in aerobatics, land speed racing, and automotive journalism.
But the one thing she wanted most—to fly to space—was denied to her not because she wasn't good enough, but because she was a woman.
She never became an astronaut. But she passed every test they gave her.
And that's something they could never take away.
