In 1947, Janet Dietrich and her sister Marion entered the inaugural Chico-to-San Mateo Air Race[clarification needed] and took first place, defeating experienced men.
In the late 1950s, Dietrich worked as the head of the Flight Department for Air Oasis Company at the Long Beach Airport, and she mentions having this position in her appearance on the January 31, 1957, episode of You Bet Your Life—indeed, she uses the secret word "head" in identifying her position, but Groucho Marx's assistants did not notice.
[2] In 1960, Dietrich and her sister were among a select group of female aviators invited to the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, where experts had screened potential NASA astronauts.
The women underwent the same medical tests and examinations as Alan Shepherd, John Glenn, and the other men who eventually traveled into space.
It would be two more decades before the United States launched its first woman into space, Sally Ride, an astrophysicist turned astronaut.