TECHNOLOGY-US: Woman Space Commander Ready to Try Again

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Maria Salazar

NEW YORK, Jul 21 1999 (IPS) - Engineers of the National Aeronautics Space Agency (NASA) completed checks of the Columbia shuttle Wednesday for a second launch attempt of the first woman to command a US space flight.

After a false alarm on a hydrogen gas leak ended Tuesday’s launch at the seven-second mark of the countdown, Eileen Collins was eager for the mission to begin Thursday.

“We’ll be ready, whenever,” said the 42-years-old US Air Force Colonel who heads the five-member crew on Colombia.

The spacecraft contains the world’s biggest and most powerful X- ray telescope, the 1.5 billion dollar Chandra Observatory, which Collins and her crew will release seven hours into their flight.

Women have flown in space for more than 30 years but Collins will be the first woman in charge of a mission. “I’ve been kind of lucky,” she admitted this week. “Although women helped pioneer aviation, they were not given the same opportunities as men.”

The launch scheduled for 1628GMT Thursday comes amid celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the successful moon landing by US astronauts aboard Apollo 11. Today, scientists believe that because of their smaller stature and lighter weight, women’s bodies are more suitable for space flight than men’s.

However, of the 21 students chosen by NASA into the most recent class only four are women.

“NASA is very serious about giving all Americans a chance to fly in space,” Collins said. “But to be an astronaut, you just can’t walk into this job – you have to prepare yourself.”

In 1960, 12 women were chosen to become astronauts, after having successfully completed the same tests as the Mercury 7 men. The women of the Mercury 13 had the same qualifications than their fellow male astronauts, but they never made it to space.

After the candidate screenings were completed, one last rule was added and held the women back. Astronauts had to be jet pilots. However, in 1960, women could not be trained to fly jets.

Then in the early 1960’s the Soviet Union sent a woman alone into space , but she flew in a spacecraft controlled from the ground. In 1983, Dr. Sally Ride was the first American woman to go to space and in 1995, Col. Collins became the first woman to pilot a space shuttle.

Collins graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics and was the first US woman to go straight from college to be trained as a pilot. She acquired more than 5000 hours of flying aboard 30 different aircraft.

Women now comprise 25 percent of NASA personnel but, although the gender barrier has fallen, Collins said more young women needed to choose technical and scientific careers before women really could be fully represented in space.

“If you don’t have large numbers of women applying, it will be hard to select large numbers of women (in space projects),” she said.

Most women with NASA have jobs significantly less demanding than that of Collins. Most are trained as mission specialists and not as pilots, which gives them less opportunities.

However, the encouragement given to would-be female astronauts is not that strong, according to some feminist groups.

Information about opportunities is scant. NASA’s page on the Internet connects into only one educational site meant to encourage young girls to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics and science.

Furthermore, this site portrays women astronauts as a rare breed of courageous women, and not as a person that any ambitious young woman could become.

One of the super-heroes portrayed there is Jerry Cobb, the first member of the Mercury 13 team. Like all the others, Cobb never made into space, although she was as qualified as the top two percent of the men involved in the Mercury project.

Today, Cobb is still trying to go to space. She believes that at the age of 67, she should be able to follow 78-years-old John Glenn’s footsteps, and be the first woman of her generation to fly in a space shuttle.