Columnists
The space closet
I’ll have to put this to print as carefully as I possibly can. Yes, I am impressed by the two women who recently made a spacewalk. It’s about time women were afforded the same opportunities as men. The thing is, basic astronaut training is exactly the same for everyone. No one gets a “pass” on anything. Everything “he can do”, “she can do”. Space exploration is exciting and I am equally impressed by men and women who have made this their profession. But my burning question is, “Why the heck did it take so long to get the women out there?” What was the space program waiting for? A sign? An omen? A public relations conundrum? Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir didn’t have any more to prove, physically, intellectually, or technically, than any other-gendered astronaut. They are all trained professionals. Koch and Meir knew the game plan and, when given the opportunity, they did what they were trained and expected to do. Yet here we are, getting all excited about something that should have taken place decades ago. Yes, decades ago. Women were always able. Women were always capable. We should be ticked about why it didn’t happen earlier.
Having to scrap the world’s first “all woman” spacewalk because there wasn’t a suit to fit the women is just so much space junk, as far as I’m concerned. And why did it have to be an “all women” spacewalk? But my point is, it’s not as if NASA woke up on the morning of the first planned all-female spacewalk and said, “Dang!! What will the “girls” wear to make their styling debut in the world of otherworldliness?” I sorta, kinda wonder what it would be like if the tables were turned. What if, on March 27, there wasn’t a spacesuit big enough to accommodate the male astronauts? Think about it. What kind of headlines would we have read on that morning? Likely that the entire mission had been scrapped. Perhaps the whole world of space fashion would jumped up and some other country would have raised their hands and, magically, dozens of man-sized spacesuits would have been packaged up and UPS’d to those naked space-apes.
I am thrilled women were finally deemed good enough to do what has most clearly been perceived to be a man’s job. I do find it difficult to believe we haven’t moved on from “boy jobs and girl jobs”. When US astronaut Anne McClain was asked if “girls can be astronauts” she replied there were many obstacles on road to becoming an astronaut but your gender isn’t one of them. Anne McClain also stated that the decision to cancel the original all-female spacewalk was based on her recommendation. She suggested it had been a tough call. I imagine it couldn’t have been difficult since she couldn’t find anything to wear for the occasion. When asked to react to the news, in the spring, Canada’s first female astronaut said this “should be a wakeup call.” Roberta Bondar suggested not having enough spacesuits available to fit women was a problem years ago, “and obviously nothing has changed.”
In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space. Since that time nearly sixty other woman have followed in her footsteps. There were a lot of obstacles to overcome and a lot of female specific, physiological issues to deal with in those early years. Surely after 56 years someone in wardrobe could make sure the dry cleaning was picked up and the alterations were done.
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