At the time that Heinlein was writing, there was some plausibility to the idea that women might be slightly better pilots than men. You had people like Wally Funk and Hanna Reitsch. What we know now is that far from suggesting untapped potential, what they really were was two standard deviation exceptional examples, who had made it as far as they did because they were so much better than average that they rose to the top.
Again... the Mercury Thirteen experiment was a thing eight months before the book hit shelves.
The experiment was flawed, but it was still a thing that happened; it's reasonable to assume that Heinlein knew about it and was influenced by its (flawed) outcome.
In April 1959, some of the doctors who had worked with NASA to select the Mercury Seven ran an experiment. They selected a group of 25 women with over a thousand hours of flying experience, and put them through the same tests. Thirteen passed. This was done quietly (though it wasn't a secret project) but given Heinlein's background and connections it's very likely he'd heard of it and knew the results.
What we know now is that the pool of women who had a thousand hours of flying in 1959 was already going to be the best of the best, peak health and ability. Whereas the male candidates for Mercury were, as the movie said, "The best... that we can get."
I've said it before.
At the time that Heinlein was writing, there was some plausibility to the idea that women might be slightly better pilots than men. You had people like Wally Funk and Hanna Reitsch. What we know now is that far from suggesting untapped potential, what they really were was two standard deviation exceptional examples, who had made it as far as they did because they were so much better than average that they rose to the top.
But they didn't know that at the time.
There hadn't been much effort to bother investigating the outer limits of performance in piloting between sexes prior to the Mercury Thirteen.
Heinlein dealt in speculative fiction. in 1959, it was plausible.
It was false, but it was plausible.
Again... the Mercury Thirteen experiment was a thing eight months before the book hit shelves.
The experiment was flawed, but it was still a thing that happened; it's reasonable to assume that Heinlein knew about it and was influenced by its (flawed) outcome.
Thanks for pointing this out, I was unaware of this.
Starship Troopers came out in December 1959.
In April 1959, some of the doctors who had worked with NASA to select the Mercury Seven ran an experiment. They selected a group of 25 women with over a thousand hours of flying experience, and put them through the same tests. Thirteen passed. This was done quietly (though it wasn't a secret project) but given Heinlein's background and connections it's very likely he'd heard of it and knew the results.
What we know now is that the pool of women who had a thousand hours of flying in 1959 was already going to be the best of the best, peak health and ability. Whereas the male candidates for Mercury were, as the movie said, "The best... that we can get."