First woman on the moon by 2024 says NASA

[RedToothBrush]

news.sky.com/story/one-giant-leap-for-womankind-nasa-vows-to-land-first-female-astronaut-on-the-moon-by-2024-11743537

One giant leap for womankind: NASA vows to land first female astronaut on the moon by 2024
The space agency says its Artemis mission will represent its "very diverse, highly qualified" core team of astronauts.

Taking a quick look at what's happening on earth, the moon sounds a great place for women to go.

Why bother? Couldn’t one of the men who has already been there just identify as a woman and become the first retrospectively?

Exactly. Have they defined what the mean by female? It’ll be up for grabs by anyone who wants it, just like everything else that’s supposedly just for women.

And we’ll be asked to celebrate beardy Brian, because he insists he’s a woman.

I’d have more faith in the mission if they put ‘highly qualified’ before ‘very diverse’.

So long as NASA defines what a woman is. Until then, I'll not be holding my breath.

Although if that woman, ie an adult human female, has to go there to do the donkey work, then she will be an adult human female.

Brian will be hiding in the loo.

The gender neutral loo that is.

Gender neutral? Unlikely. There’ll be a men’s - for the men; and a woman’s - for everybody who fancies it.
Just like here, really

Although if that woman, ie an adult human female, has to go there to do the donkey work, then she will be an adult human female

They obviously need to know whether breeders/uterus havers/menstruators* can survive the trip before they try to colonise other planets, obvs. 🙄

• insert insulting term of choice here.

Is this something a woman would want to do? Space travel has always struck me as being a colossal waste of time. having to smell other people's farts and eat shit food in a tiny space.

.....but what would being ON the moon do to their girlie lunar cycles?

(Dons tin hat and runs away very fast)

Can we all go?

“If they can put one man on the moon, why can’t they put them all there?”Said my granny tears ago)

How patronising. It has been done 50 years ago. Sex of the next mission hardly matters now.

Sounds very 'just for equality's' sake.

“If they can put one man on the moon, why can’t they put them all there?”Said my granny tears ago)

😂 What a great line!

An old one but a good one!

On a serious note, I went to a talk a few years back by Kathryn Sullivan (NASA Astronaut group 8 - the first NASA intake to include women and Afro Americans). She made the really interesting point that NASA had done something very sensible by taking on not one but three women - because it stopped that feeling of "if a man on the programme fails, he's just an individual man on the programme who's failed; if the (one and only) woman on the programme fails, she's showed that all women would be failures."

She's a fascinating and amazing woman.

I’m not an expert, but some of the reading I’ve done on the subject strongly favors women for long space journeys. A push for inclusion isn’t just about the stellar optics of putting a woman on the moon, it’s about size and calorie requirements. There are also theories about general temperament and adaptability. Obviously nasa would
Screen for the desired traits, but the desired traits are more common in women. It’s no different than saying that on average men are stronger and faster so they are more likely to qualify for certain kinds of employment.

The Moon is history. A woman on the first Mars mission would be progress.

I can name all the astronauts who walked on the Moon because I’m a nerd but, without looking, who can name the third?

The first woman to land on the Moon will be nothing but a pub quiz question 50 years from now but they’ll remember the first ‘Martian’ for as long as they remember Neil Armstrong.

I’m not an expert, but some of the reading I’ve done on the subject strongly favours women for long space journeys.

Yup. The "Right Stuff" for the first space flights is spectaculalry the wrong stuff for interplanetary travel. Don't want single-minded risk-takers. Want quiet reliable co-operative types who like reading and quiet nights in.

There's a healthy debate about the film "Passengers" in which male space traveller accidentally wakes up on long voyage, gets bored and decides to wake up girl he fancies to lie to her so he can shag her in zero gravity. She finds out, gets angry, but forgives him and they both live happily ever after and die before everyone else wakes up at what was meant to be their destination.

Yeah I'm sure I've read that NASA are already thinking that male astronauts are less likely to be successful with the really, really long distance space travel. Women are more likely to cooperate, less likely to take unnecessary risks. I think fewer aggressive tendancies was part of it too.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

I went to the space museum recently, and there was in interesting display about research that had been done - I think in the 70s.

They were looking at whether men or women would make better astronauts. Women came on top in nearly every category - just as skilled, consumed less food and oxygen, reacted better to being weightless, remained healthier longer, better suited to the mental stress etc. There was a load more I can't remember.

And then they still went with men anyway. Because men. I wish I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not!

Public perception isn't it. If women can do it, it's not worth doing.

Just in terms of women's status in various countries, it was Russia who sent the first woman to space. Communism had a lot of pluses for women. It has unfortunately descended into a porn riddled dystopia since 1991

The Soviet Union was an absolute shit hole for women and not much better for men.