NASA, Women, and Mars
January 27, 2016
NASA, Women, and Mars
Over the past few months there has been A LOT of talk about Mars…
Specifically going to Mars … and inhabiting it.
It seems like an idea light years away (Hehe pun intended 🙂 )…But in fact, we are closer than you think…
And NASA has decided to take this trip to Mars with at least 50 percent of its astronaut class being female…
This is a big deal considering it’s the first time the class of NASA has had this many women.
Whoo hoo!
Something else to celebrate: NASA has announced, in 15 years they could all be selected for an inaugural trip to Mars…
Let’s hope we don’t discover any real Star Wars up there…
We’re kidding… but let us give you perspective on just how far Mars is from planet earth…
The shortest route to Mars is 35 million miles, and getting there will take six to nine months…
And you thought that international trip was long!
But with evidence for actual flowing water found by rovers on Mars, the journey has huge scientific ramifications… AKA a whole new place for humans to live!
“Mars can teach us so much about the past, present, and future of our own planet,” says astronaut Dr Jessica Meir.
And to become astronauts, Meir and her compatriots were selected from a pool of over 6,000 candidates and endured two years of training consisting of flying T-38 supersonic jets, mastering tasks under 40 feet of water, and surviving a plane ride known as the “vomit comet” that induces weightlessness by freefalling…
Ummm. Like we said… we could hardly survive that plane trip to New York…
Three of the four female astronauts who could go to Mars are married, and two are mothers.
The hardest part of a Mars trip, according to them, would be being separated from their planet and families for so long.
Buuuuuuuut!
The job does come with some perks, including a unique perspective. “From space,” says astronaut Anne McClain, “you can’t see borders.
What you see is this lonely planet. Here we all are on it, so angry at one another. I wish more people could step back and see how small Earth is, and how reliant we are on one another.”
SO POWERFUL.