The Sydney Feminists

Meir and Koch. Picture: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/05/science/NASA-female-spacewalk.html On October 18 th , 2019, NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir made history. They were the first all-woman team to perform a spacewalk on the International Space Station (ISS). Koch and Meir follow in the footsteps of other pioneering space women. For example, the  first female spacewalk took place 35 years ago. The Historic Spacewalk Koch during the Spacewalk. Picture: https://www.inverse.com/article/60248-spacewalk-all-female At 07:38am (North American time), Koch exited the ISS in an extravehicular activity suit (space suit), followed a short time later by Meir. The two women went to work replacing a faulty battery charge/discharge unit. The device is one of a few pieces of equipment that is responsible for regulating the station’s power. It had failed the previous week but was not critical to life support. However, the task needed to be completed...

Russia sent the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova, into space onboard Vostok 6 in 1963. It would take America another twenty years before it would send its first female astronaut, Sally Ride, skywards. Besides being the first new group since 1969, the astronaut class of 1978 was special because of its diversity, notably for including Black and Asian Americans. Selected from thousands of highly qualified candidates, the group (nicked named ‘Thirty-Five New Guys’) also included NASA’s first female astronauts. After the class announcement, each individual underwent a year of intense training before graduating and becoming an active astronaut. Sally Ride Sally Ride was the first American woman to fly in space. Ride was born on May 26th, 1951, in Encino, California. She briefly tried to become a professional tennis player but quit in order to get a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Bachelor of Arts in English. Leading up to her first flight in 1983, Ride was a member o...