Supermoon or Full Moon illustration. (Pixabay)
Hitekno.com – United States space agency, NASA is planning an exploration mission astronaut ke Month through a mission Artemis. Interestingly, who sent it female astronaut first there.
It turns out that NASA has its own reasons for the plan to send the first female astronaut to the Moon on the Artemis mission.
On Monday (12/4/2021), marks the 60th anniversary of human spaceflight or 60 years since Soviet pilot and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to go into space on April 12, 1961.
Following this historic moment, NASA wants to do something similar by landing the first humans on the Moon.
Throughout NASA’s Apollo program, the 12 astronauts sent to the lunar surface had only one thing in common: all of them were male.
In NASA’s first decade, the profile for being an astronaut was very rigid. Most of the astronauts were test pilots in their 30s and all were white males.
Since then, slowly the definition of astronaut has begun to develop and the profile of astronauts has developed. Well, with the Artemis program, NASA aims to return humans to the surface of the Moon and this time including women.
According to Peggy Whitson, a retired NASA astronaut and the first female nonmilitary chief of NASA’s Office of Astronauts, said the space agency is currently trying to promote interest in flights to the Moon.
“We realized that the last time we went to the moon, in the 60s, they were all human. So we fixed past mistakes. I think it’s to show a positive attitude regardless of background, gender and other differences,Kata Whitson.
NASA previously created a milestone for women in 2019 by sending NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir, who made the first women-only space trip on the International Space Station (ISS).
Therefore, in choosing astronauts who will land on the Moon in the Artemis program, not animals if one of them is a woman.
“These women qualify, “Added Whitson, as quoted from Space.com, Tuesday (13/4/2021).
According to Vanessa Wyche, deputy director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, said that women today represent a significant part of all aspects of the NASA workforce, both from considerations of mission capability and workforce diversity.
“The last two astronaut classes selected also account for the highest percentage of women in history, 50 percent for the 2013 class and 45 percent for the 2017 class., “ucap Wyche.
Wyche also hopes that as NASA increases the diversity of the astronaut corps in Generation Artemis, the first women to land on the lunar surface can inspire other women around the world.
That’s NASA’s plan to send the first female astronaut to the Moon on the Artemis mission. (Suara.com/ Lintang Siltya Utami).
–
