Female Population Explosion In Space

Monday, April 5, 2010 at 10:54 am

Space is about to have a female population explosion as NASA would attempt to launch three women taking the number of women to four being simultaneously in space.

One woman already is circling Earth in a Russian capsule, bound for the International Space Station, while NASA would send another three women to the orbiting outpost — along with four men — aboard shuttle Discovery.

Men still will outnumber the women by more than 2-to-1 aboard the shuttle and station, but that won’t take away from the remarkable achievement, coming 27 years after America’s first female astronaut, Sally Ride, rocketed into space.

A former schoolteacher is among the four female astronauts about to make history, as well as a chemist who once worked as an electrician, and two aerospace engineers.

Three are American; one is Japanese. Metcalf-Lindenburger and Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki, both rookies, will become the 53rd and 54th women to fly in space — and the 516th and 517th spacefarers, overall. Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the world’s first space traveler in 1961.

The Soviet Union followed with the world’s first spacewoman in 1963: Valentina Tereshkova.