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An iconic moment that could’ve happened, but failed to take place due to a basic problem. The first all-female spacewalk, an almost historic moment, that was scheduled to occur Friday, March 29th. The announcement of the first all-female spacewalk was met with such excitement, yet that excitement was quickly burnt out when NASA announced that it would not happen because they didn’t have the correct space suit sizes needed to complete the mission.
Astronauts, Anne C. McClain and Christina H. Koch, were set to make this historic walk but both needed a medium-size torso component of which only one was available at the International Space Station. According to Weitering from Space.com, McClain had “learned during her first spacewalk that a medium-size hard upper torso – essentially the shirt of the spacesuit – fits her best.” The mission itself is left unchanged, except, instead of the astronauts being Anne C. McClain and Christina H. Koch, Christina H. Koch will participate in the mission along with fellow astronaut, Nick Hague.
As far as the future goes with the idea of an all-female spacewalk, NASA hasn’t really given any sort of timeline. According to The Guardian, while over 500 people have been to space, only 11% of them have been women. There have been also a total of 214 spacewalks, most of them being all-male and some male-female. Of course, the news of this historic moment failing to occur is a major disappointment. It does prove that NASA wants to make, hopefully, sooner rather than later, the first all-female spacewalk will actually become a reality.