SPACE

I'm a Retired Female Astronaut and I Can't Understand the Obsession With 'Gender Diverse' Space
Crews

(7-20 February 2001) --- Astronaut Marsha S. Ivins, STS-98 mission specialist, is photographed on the
mid deck of the Earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Atlantis. NASA

BY MARSHA IVINS AUGUST 28, 2019

IDEAS

Marsha Ivins is a retired astronaut who flew five space shuttle missions.

On Tuesday August 21, Vice President Pence chaired the sixth meeting of the recently revived
National Space Council, a group originally chartered in 1958, disbanded in 1993 and then revived
under the current administration to help chart the direction of America’s activities in space. There
were four guest panelists highlighted at the end of the session. One spoke about nuclear power and
nuclear thermal propulsion for spaceflight; one spoke about in situ resource utilization on the Moon
and Mars; and one spoke about planetary exploration, the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s moon Titan
in particular. All were interesting and appropriate topics for a meeting whose topic was, well, the
future of space exploration.

And then there was Saralyn Mark, an M.D. and specialist in gender-based medicine, who spoke about
gender bias. Her main point: NASA needs to — no kidding — realize there are gender differences
because sending “gender diverse” crews to Mars is going to be difficult. At least I think that was her
point. It was frankly hard to listen to because enough already!

We’ve been sending gender-diverse crews to space since 1983. We’ve had women do every job a
man does in space. Every one. Space walks? Check. Shuttle commander? Check. Space Station
commander? Check. Record for long-duration flights? Check. So what’s going to be the new gender-
bias thing NASA needs to start — start? — paying attention to?

Oh I could tell you tales from bygone days of the male engineers’ original ideas of clothing and
hygiene products for women astronauts. I was working as an engineer at NASA then in the human
factors and cockpit design group. And I was there to support our first women in space, but we are
talking the late ’70s, early ‘80s. By the time I flew in space in the ‘90s, those things had changed;
they’d evolved, emerged, progressed and been accommodated for. By then a crew member was just
a crew member. The same is true today. They get what they need physically, personally and
emotionally to support them in spaceflight. Not a big deal. So why the continued insistence on
making it a big deal?

And why keep bringing up the NASA-doesn’t-make-a-spacesuit-that-fits-a-woman story? The truth

behind the cancellation last April of the “all-female spacewalk” was that it was a woman’s call! After
doing her first spacewalk, Anne McClain realized that the task on the next one would require a longer
arm reach than she had. Sure, they could have redesigned the choreography for that spacewalk,
taken the time and the effort to delay the mission, replan and retrain for it. “But why?” she said. Let
crewmate Nick Hague do it — he’s trained and he has a longer reach. Need a different tool to get the
job done? Go to the toolbox and get a different tool