Future All-Female Space Mission May Proceed Without Mascara

Wow, six women in a confined, high-pressure space for eight whole days and no one broke down weeping? No one got into a hair-pulling, scratching match? Not one woman called another a bitch? That sure is a leap forward for womankind. Sarcasm intended.

So, it seems that six female Russian scientists recently took part in an experiment to explore the possibility of an all-female space mission to the moon in 2029. Sounds exciting, right? It’s about time women were considered seriously for such a mission. But hold the phone here, people. Why did these women have to be sequestered in this experimental space?

Apparently the main goal of the project was to see if the women could actually get along together and could survive without all the comforts of home.

Experiment supervisor, Sergei Ponomaryov said, “We consider the future of space belongs equally to men and women,” Yep. Awesome. As our new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, explained, “It’s 2015.” It is high time for men and women to be represented equally in as many fields and arenas as possible.

Ponomaryov also stated, “We believe women might not only be no worse than men at performing certain tasks in space, but actually better.” Hmm. I’d prefer the comment without the built in incredulity about women’s ability to best a man, but okay, let’s go with it.

However, the Russian Space Program seems to have missed the mark here. Igor Ushakov, director of the Institute of Biomedical Problems, made a comment about how the experiment would be especially interesting because, “they say that in one kitchen, two housewives find it hard to live together.” Sigh.

Journalists were even more offensive, asking the women how they would cope for eight days without men and how they’d manage without make-up and chocolate. Le sigh.

Come on, 2015! Come on, Russia! Get your shit together. How about you focus not on if a female astronaut can survive an entire space mission without Pintrest and male hand-holding, but rather on the candidate’s physical and psychological readiness for the job.

When I did some digging, I found out that the Russian Space Program had conducted a similar experiment, in which six male candidates spent 520 days in a capsule. The focus of that experiment was far more on the men's ability to manage the isolation and stresses of the mission and far less on their ability to “get along”. I guess the feeling was men have an innate ability to act professional, where as the women may get catty, or tearful, or dear God, did they consider pre-menstral!? How could the women cope?

Oh yes, and then, there is a third experiment, with a mixed gendered team. That one ended poorly when two men got into a physical fight and one tried to kiss a woman. Sigh, sigh, a thousand times, sigh.

Perhaps the program would have more success if they provided out-of-this-world lip gloss and glittered space suits to the women participants and left all that science-y thinking stuff to the men. Or perhaps it is time to honour the individual's professionalism, attributes and achievements rather than highlighting their sex. Let's cut the sexist crap.

You would think those involved in the experiments would know better. You know the expression, "I'm not a rocket scientist"? Well these people are, in fact, rocket scientists! Seriously, we are talking about docking on a space station and travel to the moon. I say, we can only get to the future if we get our chauvinistic mindset out of the past. But, hey, don’t ask me. I’m just a girl.

^{Photo provided by Pixabay}