NASA CANCELS FIRST FEMALE-LED SPACE WALK

Illustrated by Megan Bevis

At the beginning of March, NASA announced that the first all-female space walk was set to take place on March 29. The news was welcomed with excitement, many branding it a celebratory and fitting end to International Women’s History Month. But it looks like the small step for man is still a huge leap away for women. NASA made late changes to the operation and the astronauts taking part due to a lack of spacesuits to fit the two female astronauts.

The first female-led space walk was supposed to be performed by astronauts Anna McClain and Christina Hammock, with Mary Lawrence and Jackie Kagey providing support as the lead flight director and lead flight controller, and Kristen Facciol on console at NASA’s Johnson Space

Centre in Houston. Four days before the operation was due to take place, which was a routine procedure known as extravehicular activities, NASA announced that due to a lack of spacesuits the two astronauts taking part would now be Koch and her male colleague Nick Hague.

In nearly 60 years of space flight there has been 214 space walks performed. When Koch performed the space walk on March 29, she became the 14th woman to take part in a space walk. Although the astronaut change was put down to safety concerns, it has still highlighted a lack of consideration of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) sparking a global debate on how the world seems to be built with only men in mind.