The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is returning astronauts to the moon through the Artemis program. In 2022, NASA launched the Artemis 1 mission into space with the largest rocket ever built, the Space Launch System (SLS), successfully completed its orbit around the moon and returned to Earth. The Artemis 2 mission is on track for 2024. The Artemis 3 mission a year later will return astronauts to the lunar surface, more than 50 years after humans last set foot on the moon.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Apollo program sent 12 male astronauts to the moon and back. This time, when the Artemis missions return astronauts to the moon, a woman and a person of color will walk on the lunar surface, and it may be the same person.
On October 5, 2022, Nicole Aunapu Mann began a five-month mission aboard the International Space Station, becoming the first Native American woman in space. Mann, who is originally from Northwest California’s Wallaki tribe, said before her flight to the International Space Station that, as a woman, the idea of becoming an astronaut seemed impossible. “I was born in 1977, and at that time, it was impossible.”
Mann enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. In 2013, she was selected for NASA’s astronaut training program. Mann was involved in the development of the SLS and Orion capsules. After returning from the International Space Station, she will be a strong contender to be an astronaut on the moon.
But Mann faces stiff competition to become the first female astronaut to walk on the lunar surface. NASA has announced the initial 18 members of the Artemis team, nine of whom are women, including Mann. They include Christina Koch, who took part in the first three all-female spacewalks, veteran Anne McClain, who has spent 204 days in space, and former International Rugby League player Jesse Card Watkins (Jessica Watkins). The latter will become the first African-American to work on the International Space Station in April 2022.
“We don’t yet know who the first woman was to walk on the moon,” said Emily Margolis, curator of American women’s history at the Washington Air and Space Museum and the Smithsonian Astrophysics Laboratory in Massachusetts. )Say. “But we knew she would have strong skills and extraordinary accomplishments. The women on the Artemis team hold advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and math education, and include space shuttle astronauts, commercial crew commanders and honored pilots .”
NASA has been working tirelessly to send women into space. “Certainly, women are equally as interested and capable of spaceflight,” Margolis said. “After 20 years in existence, NASA accepted its first female astronauts in 1978. While NASA did not explicitly prohibit women from applying to be astronaut candidates prior to that date, the requirement implicitly excluded them. But over time Over time, astronaut qualifications changed, and so did society’s perception of what careers were right for women. When NASA recruited the first space shuttle astronauts, it explicitly recruited women for the first time.”
Some commentators have argued that NASA’s long-standing reluctance to send female astronauts into space stems from the potential for greater public reaction in the event of a catastrophic accident involving women. Tragically, Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian U.S. astronaut to fly in space, died in the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster. The space shuttle exploded when an external solid rocket booster failed 73 seconds after launch.
McAuliffe’s death may have had a greater impact on the American public. But Margolis said that had more to do with McAuliffe being a teacher and a commoner than her gender. “The reason why McAuliffe’s death has had such a big impact is because she will be the first teacher in space in the United States,” Margolis said. “Her trip is highly anticipated. It’s a shock.”
McAuliffe’s death led to the cancellation of NASA’s Civilian Space Program. “NASA believes that the risks to civilians are too great to continue,” Margolis said. “The space shuttle is considered by the public to be a safe and comfortable journey to orbit. But Challenger was a tragedy and a reminder of the dangers.” .”
The first American woman in space was Sally Ride, who entered on the same Space Shuttle Challenger on June 18, 1983, three years before the 1986 space shuttle accident. track.
Although Ryder was the first American woman in space, she was only the third in the world. Twenty years before Ryder launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, former Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first person in space aboard the Vostok 6 spacecraft female. Her journey to space was completed on June 16, 1963, just two years after the first human cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, accomplished the same feat.
Another woman was not in space until 19 years after Tereshkova completed her spaceflight. In 1982, Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya went into space, just a year before Ryder.
Now, the focus is on who will be the first woman to walk on the moon. The selection process will be rigorous, Margolis explained, but “that’s the purview of NASA’s Astronaut Office, which generally doesn’t comment on the process.” “It’s just a wait-and-see.”
