WASHINGTON: USastronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir have became the first all-femalepairing to carry out a spacewalk-a historic milestone as NASA prepares to sendthe first woman to the Moon. "It symbolizes exploration by all that dareto dream and work hard to achieve that dream," Meir said after the 7-hour,17-minute spacewalk to replace a power controller on the International SpaceStation.
The mission wasoriginally planned for earlier this year but had to be aborted due to a lack ofproperly fitting spacesuits, leading to allegations of sexism. Koch and Meirbegan the walk with standard safety checks on their suits and tethers, beforemaking their way to the repair site on the station's port side, as the sunlitEarth came into view.
In a call toreporters just a few minutes before, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstineemphasized the symbolic significance of the day."We want to make sure thatspace is available to all people, and this is another milestone in thatevolution," he said. "I have an 11-year-old daughter, I want her tosee herself as having all the same opportunities that I found myself as havingwhen I was growing up."
Suit flub
The firstall-female spacewalk was supposed to take place in March but was canceledbecause the space agency had only one medium-sized suit. A male-female teamperformed the required task at a later date. The failure by traditionallymale-dominated NASA to be adequately prepared was denounced in some quarters asevidence of implicit sexism.
When Koch andMeir had been outside the space station for about five hours, President DonaldTrump reached them in a video call and told them they had made history."You are very brave, brilliant women," Trump said. "Yourepresent this country so well," the president added. "We are veryproud of you." Meir, a 42-year-old marine biologist who was recruited byNASA in 2013, answered by paying tribute to female pioneers of the past."We don't want to take too much credit because there have been many otherfemale spacewalkers before us," she said.
"There'sbeen a long line of female scientists, explorers, engineers and astronauts. Wehave followed in their footsteps, to get to where we are today." After thecall, the astronauts got back to their repair work. "That is a view,"one of them-it was not clear which-said at one point, as the earth was lit upin bright light from the sun. Koch, an electrical engineer who is leading themission, was carrying out her fourth spacewalk and was hooked up to thestation's robotic arm.
Meir, making herfirst spacewalk, carefully made her way using handles. The two were working toreplace a faulty battery charge/discharge unit, known as a BCDU. The stationrelies on solar power but is out of direct sunlight for much of its orbit andtherefore needs batteries. The BCDUs regulate the amount of charge that goesinto them. The current task was announced Monday and is part of a wider missionof replacing aging nickel-hydrogen batteries with higher-capacity lithium-ionunits.
Artemis
The US sent itsfirst female astronaut into space in 1983, when Sally Ride took part in theseventh space shuttle mission, and has now had more women astronauts than anyother country. But the first woman in space was Soviet cosmonaut ValentinaTereshkova in 1963, followed by compatriot Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982, who wasalso the first woman spacewalker two years later.
NASA actingassociate administrator Ken Bowersox said he hoped that an all-female spacewalkwould soon be a "routine" matter that would not requirecelebration. Asked why it had taken solong-Meir is the 14th US woman spacewalker-he said men's added height providedan advantage. "There have been a lot of spacewalks where very tall menwere the ones that were able to do the jobs because they were able to reach anddo things a little bit more easily," he said.
Democraticpresidential hopeful Kamala Harris said the spacewalk was more than historic."It's a reminder that for women, even the sky doesn't have to be thelimit," she tweeted. NASA plans to return to the Moon by 2024 for thefirst time since the Apollo landings of 1969-1972. The new mission is namedArtemis, after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology. The mission will likelysee the first woman set foot on the lunar surface, perhaps as part of amale-female combination, as the space agency looks ahead to a crewed Marsexpedition in the 2030s. - AFP