Is This What Will Actually Make Artemis Happen?
Transcript: NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on “Face the Nation,” July 14, 2019, CBS
CBS: “So the first steps [on the Moon] in 2024 will be by a woman?”
Bridenstine: “That’s the goal.”
Women are less supportive of space exploration, but putting a woman on the Moon might change that, The Conversation
“From my perspective as a space policy analyst, this is an important message for NASA to send. Women have been historically excluded from the space program, especially early on. While women have made inroads both as astronauts and more generally within the NASA ranks since, there remains a significant gender gap in support for space exploration. And for Artemis to succeed in getting the first woman to the Moon by 2024, a lot of political and public support will be required.”
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‘Frau im Monde’ – just sayin’…
As I told Sen. Cruz’s subcommittee on Aviation and Space, I don’t care a bit who the next professional astronauts are on the moon. I care who the next plumber, electrician, construction worker, and stonemason are. Only when our blue collar workers start going there to work and get a paycheck will space travel mean much to the taxpayers other than golly, gee whiz stuff that doesn’t mean that much. As for the women at NASA, my last four direct supervisors at MSFC were women and over 75% of my branch were women. I retired in 1998. Let’s give credit where credit is due for our space agency which has been pretty gender neutral for a very long time.
NASA definitely seems to have done a much better job than the Russians and ESA in terms of its efforts to diversify. If you look at the list of women who flown in space the vast majority are from NASA.
Still longer than the list of Black people..
This is probably going to upset people, but please read through to the end. The fraction of African American astronauts should be lower than the number of female astronauts. If the goal is to make irrelevant criteria irrelevant, such as race and gender, then matching the country’s demographic makeup is what we want. I believe that is 50% female and 13% African American. That implies a four to one difference. If it isn’t four to one, that’s a problem. But just saying it isn’t one to one doesn’t make sense to me.
PANDERING
Meh. The US already had 12 white men walk on the moon 50 years ago. I’m perfectly fine with diversifying this time around. The fact is that there are so few astronaut jobs and so many overqualified applicants that pretty much any NASA astronaut would be up to the task, IMHO.
As Homer Hickam said above:
We need to get past the point where astronaut is some elite job and everything they do ends up “in the history books” as a “first”.
Here Here!!
Poppy Northcutt @poppy_northcutt
NASA administrator says goal is to put 1st woman on moon. I applaud commitment to diversity, but every govmt official should know the law of the land is non-discrimination. Just choose based on qualifications, not by gender. There are plenty of well qualified women astronauts.
From a voice of experience: Poppy Northcutt who was first woman to work in an operational support role in the Mission Control Center in Houston during the Apollo program.
We’ve seen this before
https://upload.wikimedia.or…
I would vote for Caldwell Dyson and/or Annimal.