How space affects women and men differently

[NonnyMouse1337]

Not directly tied to feminism, but I thought it was interesting to study the differences in women's and men's physiology in terms of space missions.

It hadn't even occurred to me about dealing with menstrual blood and products in space.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49744892

Like many types of space research, it can lead to important medical and scientific discoveries that are useful here on Earth.

I had heard before that the male NASA engineers hugely overestimated the number of tampons needed per week.
But at least they didn't underestimate!
But they did ask Sally Ride if 100 was the right number and she said no, it's not like they actually sent that many.

deydododatdodontdeydo yes they mention this in the article and it made me laugh. :)

What about periods in space?
VJ: When the Americans sent Sally Ride up into space, the questions that Nasa had were about what would happen to women's periods and how do we account for this.

Female astronauts said at the time, 'let's consider it non-problem until it becomes a problem'. But space travel is a bit like a camping trip and the engineers had to plan things like how many sanitary products were needed.

Because it was a very male dominated world, the figures that they thought they needed were 100 or 200 tampons for a week! They shortly came to the conclusion that that many weren't needed.

Most female astronauts now use the contraceptive pill to stop their periods and it is safe for them to do so because they are healthy women.

It's a shame the article concentrates mainly on gynaecological issues as I found this passage more interesting

Women are more likely to feel sick when they go into space, men are more likely to get re-entry sickness when they come back to Earth.

Men have more problems with their vision and hearing when they get back from space which women don't get. When women return they do have problems managing their blood pressure so they feel quite faint.

So there are some subtle differences and we don't know if that's to do with hormonal differences or more physiological changes that are occurring. And long-term, understanding those differences will help us understand more about human health on Earth.

I'd also be curious to know if there is a proportional difference in muscle wastage between men and women who spend time on the space station. It isn't mentioned so perhaps not but there's not much detail to go on.

VJ: Overall adaptation to the space environment is roughly the same for men and women but there are some differences.

They probably haven't studied every aspect simply because not enough numbers of people (especially women) have actually been into space.