Cobb RELATED VIDEO CNN's Miles O'Brien flies with Jerrie Cobb Windows Media 28K 56K

PONCA CITY, Oklahoma (CNN) -- All space junkies know about NASA's famous Mercury seven, but what about the Mercury 13?

The Mercury 13 were NASA's first female astronauts -- 13 women chosen to endure the same physical and psychological tests for space that their seven male counterparts endured.

But the Mercury 13 were never tapped for space duty.

In the mid-1960s, Jerrie Cobb, one of those would-be space fliers, took the U.S. Congress to task for NASA's failure to give women the same opportunity it was giving men.

At that time, in an ironic turn, newly decorated space hero John Glenn told Congress that NASA was just following the nation's "social order" by refusing to fly the female astronauts.

Now that Glenn is returning to space as an elderly "guinea pig," Cobb is renewing her own attempt to shoot for the stars.

CNN's Miles O'Brien has her story.