A Woman!

When James Bond meets Dr Holly Goodhead for the first time, they have the following conversation: 

Bond: My name is Bond, James Bond. I'm looking for Doctor Goodhead.

Goodhead: You just found her.

Bond: A Woman!

Goodhead: Your powers of observation do you credit, Mr Bond.

Bond: James, to my friends.

Goodhead: Holly Goodhead. (They shake hands)

Bond: Are you training to be an astronaut?

Goodhead: I'm fully trained. On loan from NASA – the space administration.

Moonraker was released in 1979. Some reactions to this dialogue in the 2020s say James Bond's behaviour is misogynistic because he doesn't expect an astronaut to be a woman. Such a reactions miss the fact that in 1979 only one woman had ever flown into space! And that was 17 years earlier, in 1962. Given that fact, would you honestly have expected an astronaut to be a woman in 1979? You may well have wanted a woman to be an astronaut, but that is not the same as expecting to encounter one, given the odds. NASA had just launched a female astronaut program, but that would have only been known to space nerds. In the late 1970s, most people would not have expected a medical doctor to be female, let alone an astronaut. Even six years later, in 1985, women constituted only 16% of practicing American physicians (Wikipedia book reference). Whereas today chances of a doctor being male or female are around 50%. That's a major change, which started taking off in the 1970s and 80s.

James Bond represents the audience when he first meets Dr Holly Goodhead.
What the movie is doing in that dialogue scene is introducing a female astronaut to a mainstream audience. Moonraker is promoting the idea of female astronauts. It reflects what was happening in real life, but looking ahead. NASA had just started a program with female astronauts, but it would not be until 1983 that one of them flew into space. There had been no Western women in space at the time Moonraker was released, and only one woman worldwide, 17 years earlier. You can't do justice to an over 45 year old movie without some knowledge of the time it was produced in. The world was split during the Cold War into two opposing sides and the information you received depended on where you lived. Since there had been no female astronauts in the West, most people would not have been aware that even a single woman had flown into space.

Western countries would not have promoted a woman from the Eastern bloc countries, and Eastern bloc media would not have promoted any advances in Western aerospace. If you want to understand people's perception at the time, then you need to know how information spread. Who controlled the flow of mass information and what technologies were available. That is relevant to the time of Moonraker, and also to our own time today.

Female Space Flight During the Cold War 

During the Cold War there were two opposing space programs. One in the USA, and one in the Soviet Union. It was in the East that a woman first went into space, 21 years before a woman in the West. The first two women in space were Soviet cosmonauts. The first was Valentina Tereshkova in 1962, the second Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982. It wasn't until 1983 that a US female astronaut, Sally Ride, flew into space. In the West, there was no imagery and no broad consciousness of female astronauts until the late 1970s. Space nerds would have known, but they represent a tiny percentage of the population. The Soviet women would not have been promoted in Western media. There may have been initial news reports, but beyond that not enough for people to remember.
During the Space Race to the moon in the 1960s, there was a propaganda battle, so neither side would have promoted the other.

The Space Race itself was a major propaganda battle between Western bloc capitalism and Eastern bloc communism. There is a taped conversation from the White House's Oval Office between John F. Kennedy and a NASA representative where JFK says that the only way he can justify spending such a huge amount of money on the space program is to prove that the US way of life is better than the Soviet model.
(Side note: I was surprised that JFK recorded Oval Office conversations because I thought Nixon was the first. But American presidents, from both parties, recorded conversations. It started as soon as voice recording technology was available. Even before magnetic tapes.)

Two Types of "Bond Girl"

Dr Holly Goodhead is an assertive, capable Bond ally. Bond movies of the 1960s and 1970s had two types of female ally. (Note, the villainous Bond women can be very dangerous and follow different paths, but they are in a separate category to allies). One type starts out assertive, or even ranked higher than Bond (Tiffany Case), but by the showdown is being held captive by the main villain and only wearing a bikini or at least revealing clothing (e.g. Tiffany Case, Anya Amasova, Mary Goodnight). The second type shows her mettle in the showdown by either fighting alongside James Bond, or saving his life (e.g. Tatiana Romanova, Domino, Holly Goodhead, Kara Milovy). It's the female lead who shoots the main villain and saves Bond's life at the end of From Russia with Love (1963) and Thunderball (1965).

Holly the Astronaut

Dr Holly Goodhead is highly competent in a way that was not common for female characters in mainstream action movies of the time. Although Moonraker is a fantastical movie, the character of Holly Goodhead as a female astronaut is relatively believable. What I mean is that her character shows what she needs to do within the limitations of the movie. Her character would probably not stand up to scrutiny by a real female astronaut, but she doesn't need to because a Bond movie is not a documentary. It's entertainment intended for a mainstream audience.

Why did the filmmakers make Dr Holly Goodhead an astronaut? There was no reason to do that unless they wanted a female astronaut. I think they did that because Bond films tried to step a little into the future, and female astronauts were part of future space travel. This film came out in 1979 and NASA selected its first female astronauts between 1976 and 1978. You might argue that they needed someone to fly the space shuttle, but audiences would expect James Bond to simply know that as well. It's often parodied that James Bond can do anything. He can drive or fly any vehicle, compete against villains and henchmen in any contest physical or intellectual, and has nerd-level knowledge of almost any topic relevant to his current mission.

Therefore, the filmmakers could have let James Bond be a space expert and audiences would have accepted it. It's part of his fantasy character that he can do almost anything action-wise, and socially fit in with almost any group. But the filmmakers did not do that. But they didn't do that. Instead, they made Holly Goodhead a "fully trained" astronaut, as she tells Bond when he queries her. 

Dr Goodhead. Really?

It's easy to argue that the name Dr Goodhead is demeaning because of its sexual connotation. It's not exactly one of the most creative names. The Austin Powers movies have better names while parodying on purpose. It's far from the clever wit of the classic "Pussy Galore". That aside, I think the name increases the audience's surprise at Holly Goodhead's capabilities by creating a greater difference between what we expect and what we witness her doing. The name is overtly sexual so she could have merely been a disposable pleasure for James Bond. When we first meet her, she is dressed in regular office clothing and holding a clipboard.

Next the audience discovers she is the scientist Bond is looking for and is surprised together with Bond (1979 audience!). At the same time the audience hears her name, which doesn't fit that of a scientist or astronaut. There's a paradox because it's definitely unexpected. Then she makes clear that she is not a trainee, but a "fully trained" astronaut. Later on we discover, she is also a spy for the CIA.In the third act of the movie, she flies a space shuttle, and during the showdown on the space station she swings punches at bad guys. This is clever fiction. What makes characters interesting is when they change their own behaviour, or our perception of them changes as we learn more about them.  there is more to Holly good head than we first imagine. There is a slow reveal of her capabilities throughout the movie.

I don't think the character should be reduced to "terrible name, but good she's an astronaut". That approach misses all the other things she is and can do. The audience is set up to have low to moderate expectations of her in the way James Bond doesn't initially take her too seriously at their first encounter. Bond's and the audience's perceptions change as the mission progresses. It's not a character arc, because the character does not change, but maybe it could be called a perception arc?Moonraker shows a capable female spy, who is also an astronaut, three years before the second Soviet female cosmonaut, and four years before the first US female astronaut. There had only been one woman in space at the time, 17 years earlier.

Instead of James Bond single handedly taking down the villain and main henchman, as well as rescuing his female ally and love interest, in Moonraker there is a division of expertise. Holly Goodhead is the one with the space competence. James Bond leaves that up to her, while he focuses on his main goal to expose and prevent the villain’s evil plot to cause human infertility on earth. Bond uses Goodhead‘s space expertise to achieve his goals like shutting off the radar jamming shields to expose Drax’s space station so space troops can be sent from earth. Finally, when there’s a big fight against the various henchmen, Holly Goodhead is swinging punches at them together with James Bond. 

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Notes:
You can view a list of active NASA astronauts, with an increasing number of women, on the following page.
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/astronauts/active-astronauts/

Sources:

https://www.space.com/16143-women-space-firsts-gallery.html

The stat about women physicians accounting for around 16% in the United States in 1985 is references on Wikipedia as coming from this book:
Regina Morantz-Sanchez, Sympathy and Science: Women Physicians in American Medicine (1985 first ed.; 2001)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womeninmedicine