As we move closer to flying to Mars step by step, it’s more and more confident that this expedition could be an absolute victory for women around the world. Back in 2013, NASA announced that the team will consist of 8 recruits, and for the first time in the history of astronautics, there will be exactly as many women on board as men.
In March 2019, in an interview with CNN, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstein said that a woman is likely to be the first person to visit the Red Planet. He also added that the weaker sex will certainly take its place on the next flight to the moon.
It was a long journey for female astronauts, and today it can be argued that they have passed it with dignity.
Discrimination based on gender
This is not the first time NASA has decided to send the weaker sex into space: the first precedent took place in the 1960s. Then, during the preparation of the space program, 13 female pilots underwent all the same tests (both physical and psychological) as the male astronauts.
Their next step was to visit a naval military facility located in Florida when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration suddenly backed up. Then all the female astronauts who passed the test received telegrams, which clearly indicated that they would not leave Earth.
The appeal did not help: NASA's top management decided this was unacceptable. At the time, influential astronaut John Glenn stated: “Men participate in wars, fly airplanes, design, create and test them. The fact that women are outside of this area is the basis of social order.”
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Discoverers of space
Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space. She left Earth in 1963. Progressive Americans gave their ladies such a chance only 20 years later: after Tereshkova, Sally Ride went to the vastness of the Universe.
And in 1999, the weaker sex was admitted to the management of a space mission: Eileen Collins took a leadership position and was able to prove to the whole world that a woman's place is not only in the kitchen.
But back to those 13 heroines who were encouraged and quickly besieged: among them was Wally Funk. She is the only one of all the applicants who did not betray her dream and tried to further develop in the field of astronautics. To her credit, it will be said that most of the tests Funk passed much better than her male colleagues. Wally was able to get into Virgin Galactic, a commercial space company that today deals with tourist flights into orbit.
“It was a sad era when women only had a say in the kitchen,” the astronaut said in an interview with The Times. - Space travel was the prerogative of grown-up boys who dreamed of surfing the vastness of the Universe. The girls were left to take care of the children and the home."
Space today
However, time does not stand still, and over the past 20 years, the situation with the status of women has changed a lot: nowadays, even in NASA, girls occupy leadership positions, solve many issues related to the conquest of space.
Until today, people have not set foot on any planets except the Moon, and therefore, according to the leadership of the Mission Directorate, it will be fair if female astronauts become the first people to conquer the vastness of the Red Planet.
Why are women more economically profitable spacecraft personnel than men?
And yet, who is better suited for flights outside our planet? Do astronauts need masculine strength and sharpness of mind, or is flexibility of thinking and the ability to quickly adapt to changing circumstances more important in space?
Keith Green, one of the applicants for an astronaut position on a space mission to Mars, spoke about her vision of NASA's programs.
She believes women are much better suited for interstellar travel. The main argument is not at all feminist arguments and heated speeches about equality. According to Green, women consume and spend on average twice as few calories as males, and therefore sending a representative of the fair half of humanity into space is much more reasonable from an economic point of view.
Expedition simulation
Here's how Kate Greene described her Hawaii test: “We've been in a confined space week after week, and you know what I noticed? Three female crew members spent half the calories of three men. We all trained in the same rhythm: about 45 minutes a day, five times a week. But our metabolism is radically different from that of men: if the representatives of the stronger sex burned an average of 3450 kcal per day, then women spent no more than 1500”.
One of NASA specialists, Alan Drysdale, studied in detail the physiological characteristics of men and women and came to the conclusion that it is more logical to form a team from small women than from large men.
“The thin, short girls selected for the flight showed the same intellectual abilities as the big men. At the same time, they take up half the space, weigh less and require less food. I don't see much point in taking large people on an expedition when intelligence is of paramount importance,”says Drysdale, commenting on the results of his research.
A new turn in the world of space flight
NASA claims that women are in no way inferior in their performance to men: their physical and psychological test results are truly impressive. Moreover, they require much less resources, save money and fuel. Experts predict that the number of female astronauts will increase significantly in the near future.
If we consider that in the past, only cultural stereotypes and restrictions kept the weaker sex from conquering space, then this is not surprising.
Iuliia Batruddinova