The letter stated that NASA had no existing space program for aspiring women
All right, that last bit isn't in the letter. But we can certainly imagine it.
It seems a number of women have faced rejection from the aeronautical organization. At an event celebrating Amelia Earhart last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the audience that she also received a rejection letter from NASA because of her gender.
"When I was about 13, I wrote to NASA and asked what I needed to do to try to be an astronaut," Clinton said. "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."
At some point NASA changed its mind and Sally Ride became the first American woman sent to space in 1983. In this year's new class of NASA astronauts, 50% are women, which the agency said was the "highest percentage of female astronaut candidates ever selected for a class."
Who would have thought it! Women in space! Doing a man's (snort) job. My how times have changed.