Let’s try it again: NASA will finally have its first all-women spacewalk. Or at least, that’s the plan. You might remember that back in March of this year, NASA announced its plan to have an all-women space crew for the very first time. Unfortunately, that plan was altered due to a wardrobe issue (yes, really—though the reasoning makes a lot of sense).
There weren’t enough size medium spacesuit components available in the orbiting lab the first time around, and as one can reasonably believe, these suits need to fit astronauts pretty perfectly. While an appropriate suit was technically available, it would have wasted a load of time to switch it out. In simple language, it was more efficient to switch astronauts than switch suits.
So a man, Nick Hague, replaced one of the women, Anne McClain, for the journey.
Now, NASA says it is on track to complete a new mission with all women. Right now, it’s scheduled for Oct. 21 and is set to include Jessica Meir and Christina Koch. CNN reports that Meir and Koch are part of the same astronaut class and have trained together over the last six years.
These incredibly heartwarming photos of Meir hugging the astronauts are going viral:
Koch has been living in space since March, while Meir got to the International Space Station in September. Koch was one of the women scheduled to participate in the first attempted all-women spacewalk, so it’s pretty cool that she gets to participate in one now. For the record, McClain, the astronaut who didn’t get to go, has already returned to Earth.
And yes: The reason this is finally able to happen is that NASA has an additional medium-sized suit that astronauts can readily access! For the curious, it’s a medium-size hard upper torso spacesuit, per NASA’s press release at the time.
"It turns out that over the next couple of years we're having a lot of medium-suit people fly, and so that's the sweet spot," Kirk Shireman, program manager for the International Space Station, said at an Oct. 4 news conference.
This is great! And surprising, because back in April the agency said it had no plans to format additional medium-torso suits onto the orbiting lab (which is, again, where they need to be for easy access).
It’s also worth noting that NASA doesn’t designate its suits by sex, but rather by size. So in theory, a woman could wear the large suit—it’s just that generally, in reality, women astronauts fit better in the mediums.
