Fact Check: Did NASA reject Hillary Clinton's childhood dream of becoming an astronaut?

WASHINGTON, DC: A story recounted by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton gained widespread attention in late 2024. It detailed an occasion when she, as a child, allegedly wrote to NASA expressing her desire to become an astronaut.

According to her account, NASA replied that they did not accept female astronauts. This narrative has frequently become a topic of viral interest in recent years, with numerous online discussions questioning the veracity of her statement.

Hillary Clinton reflects on childhood aspiration to become an astronaut

In a 2012 speech commemorating Amelia Earhart, Clinton recounted the story, "Now some of you may know that when I was a little girl growing up in Illinois, I was interested in all kinds of stories about women. And my mother ... was a real fan of Amelia Earhart's, and actually told me about Amelia Earhart."

She added, "And then when we decided, under President Kennedy's leadership, that our nation was going to go to the moon and we were going to have an astronaut program, I wanted to be an astronaut. So when I was about 13, I wrote to NASA and asked what I needed to do to try to be an astronaut."

"And of course, there weren't any women astronauts, and NASA wrote me back and said there would not be any women astronauts. And I was just crestfallen. But then I realized I couldn't see very well, and I wasn't all that athletic, so probably – (laughter) -- I wouldn't be the first woman astronaut anyway," she explained. 

Investigation reveals uncertainty around Hillary Clinton's NASA correspondence

In 2015, The Washington Post investigated the story, contacting both NASA and the Clinton campaign. However, neither was able to replicate the correspondence described by Clinton, considering the events occurred approximately fifty years prior.

NASA contended that such an interaction probably occurred and had no grounds to question Clinton's account. Officials stated that this response aligned with the policies in effect at that time.

"In 1962, the requirements for being an astronaut included being a military test pilot with a degree in engineering," according to spokesperson Lauren Worley. "More than 50 years later, NASA's astronaut corps reflects our nation's diversity."

At that time, NASA did not have an astronaut program for women. Sally Ride became the first American woman to travel to space in 1983, while Susan Helms was the first female crew member on a space station in 2001.

The Washington Post shared an excerpt from NASA's research on a private screening in the 1960s that did not succeed in selecting women astronauts.

As per the research, Dr Randy Lovelace ran a private screening program for women astronauts in 1960/61, which was terminated in September 1961. The program was criticized for not being official, and congressional hearings were held in 1962.

NASA Deputy Administrator Hugh Dryden stated that NASA did not have a requirement for such a program but might investigate it in the future, reflecting the official policy on women astronauts.

NASA's historical responses to young aspirants reflect policy against female astronauts

The Washington Post examined archived documents and discovered several responses from NASA that kindly encouraged the young girls who wrote to them despite adhering to the policy of not training female astronauts at the time.

An example involves a letter in Sally Ride's collection, sent by Linda Halpern, who had written to NASA in 1962.

She received a reply from the agency stating, "While many women are employed in other capacities in the space program — some of them in extremely important scientific posts — we have no present plans to employ women on space flights because of the degree of scientific and flight training, and the physical characteristics, which are required."

A NASA spokesperson provided the following statement in response to our inquiries, "Unfortunately, because so many letters of this kind were received, we do not have a record of a letter to or from Mrs Clinton in the 1960s, but we have no reason to doubt her account."

NASA also shared correspondence between former astronaut Marsha Ivins and the space agency from 1970.

While there is a substantial amount of circumstantial evidence suggesting NASA likely sent such a response to Clinton, verifying the actual correspondence after several decades is not possible. Consequently, a fact-checking website called Snopes has rated this claim as unproven.