‘The mission becomes more important than a cool milestone,’ a NASA spokesperson said
It had not been planned as a historic mission, yet it would have represented a moment of sorts: the first all-female spacewalk.
The mission itself is unchanged. On Friday, two astronauts will venture outside the space station on a six-hour mission to install massive lithium-ion batteries that will help power the research laboratory. Koch is still scheduled to participate, along with fellow astronaut Nick Hague; McClain did her first spacewalk last week.
And of the two medium-size torsos available, one has yet to be properly configured for a spacewalk. It would take hours of crew labor — not to mention some additional risk — to fix that in time for Friday. Instead of doing that, NASA decided to simply switch out the astronauts.“When you have the option of just switching the people, the mission becomes more important than a cool milestone,” Schierholz said.
After the rescheduling Monday, Schierholz said that while there were no concrete plans for an all-female spacewalk, one is increasingly likely because NASA astronauts have been diversifying in terms of gender.McClain and Koch were part of the 2013 astronaut class, and of the eight people in that class — chosen from more than 6,000 applicants — half were women, a first for NASA. The agency lists 38 active astronauts on its website, and 12 are women.
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