2016’s Hidden Figures sought to shine a light on the forgotten efforts of women working at NASA during the Space Race in the 1960s – a film based on the true stories of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson as they worked to plot the flight trajectories for the Apollo 11 flight to the moon and faced structural discrimination and racism.

And now a new documentary from Netflix, Mercury 13, looks to explore more true stories, following the stories of 13 female pilots who were rejected from NASA’s space programmes.

Myrtle Cagle, Jerrie Cobb, Janet Dietrich, Marion Dietrich, Wally Funk, Sarah Gorelick, Jane Hart, Jean Hixson, Rhea Hurrle, Gene Nora Stumbough, Irene Leverton, Jerri Sloan and Bernice Steadman were all professional pilots, and all underwent the same rigorous psychological and physical trials that male astronauts went through in order to gain entrance to the space programme.

These included X-rays and regular physicals, to more unusual tests, such as one in which women were asked to “swallow a rubber tube” in order to test their stomach acids, and another where icy water was pumped into the women’s ears to induce vertigo.

This Netflix documentary tells the untold story of NASA's women astronauts