NASA’s all-female spacewalk makes history - The Washington Post

Koch was first to venture out of the ISS with a red tether attached to her suit.

Meir soon followed, carrying a tool bag as she made her way out of the hatch at 7:49 a.m.

The historic float outside the orbiting laboratory into the vacuum of space came several months after another all-female spacewalk was canceled because NASA did not have enough spacesuits in the right size. And it’s being heralded as a huge step forward for the agency at a time when NASA continues to work to highlight the contributions of women.

At a media briefing before the 5 ½-hour-spacewalk, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the agency would build on the astronauts’ efforts and send the “next man and the first woman” to the moon by 2024, an effort the agency has dubbed “Artemis” after the twin sister of Apollo. Today’s spacewalk is another milestone toward making space more available to everyone, he said.

In the Space Operations Center at NASA’s headquarters, Bridenstine watched the beginning of the spacewalk Friday with space station managers and a few members of Congress and pointed out that 15 women have now performed spacewalks.

“And 14 of then have been American,” he said. “So we’re leading the way on this.”

Koch, who is scheduled to spend 328 days aboard the station — the longest ever by a woman — has said she embraced the historic significance of the adventure she was about to embark on.

“In the past, women haven’t always been at the table,” she said in an interview with NPR from the space station. “It’s wonderful to be contributing to the human spaceflight program at a time when all contributions are being accepted, when everyone is having a role, and that can lead in turn to an increased chance of success.”

Meir said the spacewalk “shows all the work that went in for the decades prior — all of the women who worked to get us to where we are today. The nice thing for us is we don’t even really think about it on a daily basis. It’s just normal. We’re part of the team. . . . It’s really nice to see how far we have come.”

Ken Bowersox, acting associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA, said in a teleconference Friday that he hopes two women completing spacewalks will become routine one day. He noted that physical characteristics of women have made it harder in the past to do spacewalks because of suit operations. But as different kinds of people have entered space, NASA has adjusted its suits, he said.

Both Koch and Meir were selected as part of NASA’s 2013 astronaut class, the first with an equal number of men and women. But for all the high-profile advancements, women remain an overwhelming minority among the rank and file at NASA and the industry more broadly, which has long been dominated by white men. Women make up about a third of NASA’s workforce, 28 percent of senior executive leadership positions and 16 percent of senior scientific employees, according to a survey done by the agency.

Among those hailing the spacewalk was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who called Koch and Meir “an inspiration to women & girls across America.”

Bridenstine said getting more women into the agency was a top priority. “We’re making significant progress in this area and have been for a number of years,” he said. “But we’re not done. There’s a lot more to do.” He said that events like Friday’s spacewalk are “what inspires tomorrow astronauts, and we want tomorrow’s astronauts to represent all of America.”

Spacewalks are among the mostly grueling work that astronauts undertake in space. They are physically taxing and mentally challenging, astronauts have said — like taking an exam while running a marathon. And Friday’s was scheduled to last 5 ½ hours to replace what is known as a “battery charge-discharge unit,” a component that NASA said “regulates the charge to the batteries that collect and distribute solar power to the orbiting lab’s systems.”

Before becoming an astronaut, Koch, 40, was an electrical engineer at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center, where she worked on scientific instruments used in the study of cosmology and astrophysics. She later became a research associate in the U.S. Antarctic Program, which included a year-long stay at the South Pole.

Curb appeal. It’s not often I get to see my house from the outside. This photo I snapped on my spacewalk last Friday captures the habitable modules that I have called home for the last eight months. Pretty lucky to be living inside an engineering marvel. pic.twitter.com/djbnCstXfN
— Christina H Koch (@Astro_Christina) October 15, 2019

Meir, a scientist, has a doctorate in marine biology. She previously worked at Lockheed Martin supporting human physiology research and participating in research flights for NASA on reduced gravity aircraft as well as in an underwater habitat. She also has studied the physiology of animals in extreme environments.

NASA was hoping to have an all-female spacewalk in March. But it was canceled after astronaut Anne McClain discovered that the spacesuit she was to wear did not fit properly. Instead, astronaut Nick Hague went in her place.

On Friday, there were no such hiccups as the spacewalk began.

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