Women in space
(AP Photo/John Raoux, file)
The space program is about to get a feminine touch.
A first: Two spacecraft are going to be commanded by women at the same time. The space shuttle Discovery, launching Tuesday, will be commander Pamela Melroy and the international space station is being run by commander Peggy Whitson, who arrived at the orbital outpost on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on Oct. 12.
AP Aerospace Writer Marcia Dunn reports this is just a coincidence, not a public relations gimmick thought up by NASA.
- "This is a really special event for us," Melroy said. "... There are enough women in the program that coincidentally this can happen, and that is a wonderful thing. It says a lot about the first 50 years of spaceflight that this is where we're at."
Melroy and Whitson will meet in space: The shuttle's mission is a construction project at the space station. They will be together in orbit for 1 1/2 weeks.
-- Howie Rumberg
Personally, I don't really see a great big deal of it. It doesn't really advance the field of aeronautics, does it?
Posted by: YJL | 23 October 2007 at 01:23 AM