According to NPR, the historic all-female spacewalk originally sc
According to NPR, the historic all-female spacewalk originally scheduled for this Friday will not go forward for wardrobe reasons — or, more precisely, because NASA could not supply one of the lady astronauts with a medium-sized spacesuit. A male astronaut will take her place instead, making this a small step back for women.
As Women’s History Month kicked off, feminists were ecstatic over news that astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch would be partaking in a historic spacewalk on the International Space Station as part of Expedition 59. Unfortunately, astronaut Ann McClain will no longer be able to participate after recently discovering her inability to maneuver properly in the large-sized spacesuit.
“Last week, NASA astronaut Anne McClain wore a large-sized spacesuit to conduct her first spacewalk, where she helped swap out aging batteries that store energy collected by the station’s solar panels,” reports NPR. “While she was working, she realized that her suit was too big to maneuver in comfortably. Instead of the large, she would need a medium-sized hard upper torso — what NASA calls ‘the shirt of the spacesuit.'”
“Two mediums existed on the ISS, but only one was prepped for a spacewalk,” the report continued.
