Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

NASA is returning astronauts to the moon through the Artemis program. In 2022, NASA launched the Artemis 1 mission into space with the largest rocket space launch system (SLS) ever built, successfully completing the lunar orbit and returning to Earth smoothly. The Artemis 2 mission will proceed as planned in 2024. The Artemis 3 mission a year later will return astronauts to the moon's surface, more than 50 years after humans last landed on the moon.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Apollo missions sent 12 male astronauts to the moon and back. This time, when the Artemis mission returns to the moon with astronauts, a woman and a person of color will walk on the lunar surface, and probably the same person.

On October 5, 2022, Nicole Aunapu Mann began a five-month mission to the International Space Station, becoming the first Native American woman to go into space. Mann, a Wallachian from northwestern California, said before flying to the International Space Station that as a woman, the idea of becoming an astronaut seemed impossible. "I was born in 1977 and at that time it was impossible. "

Mann joined the U.S. Marine Corps after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. In 2013, she was selected for NASA's astronaut training program. Mann was involved in the development of the SLS and Orion capsules. After returning from the International Space Station, she will be a strong contender for astronauts on the moon.

But Mann faces stiff competition to become the first female astronaut to walk on the moon's surface. NASA has announced 18 initial Artemis team members, nine of whom are women, including Mann. They include Christina Koch, who has participated in the first three all-female spacewalks, Anne McClain, who has spent 204 days in space, and Jessica Watkins, a former International Rugby League player. The latter became the first African-American to work on the International Space Station in April 2022.

"We don't know yet who the first woman to walk on the moon was," said Emily Margolis, curator of American women's history at the Washington Air and Space Museum and Smithsonian Astrophysics Laboratory in Massachusetts. "But we knew she would have strong skills and extraordinary accomplishments. Artemis 'female team members have advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, including space shuttle astronauts, commercial crew commanders and meritorious pilots. "

NASA has been working tirelessly to send women into space. "Of course, women's interest in and ability to fly in space is not inferior," Margolis said. Twenty years after its founding, NASA accepted its first female astronauts in 1978. Although NASA had not previously explicitly barred women from applying for astronaut candidates, the requirements implicitly excluded them from participation. But over time, astronaut qualification requirements have changed, as have society's perceptions of what careers are appropriate for women. When NASA recruited its first shuttle astronauts, it explicitly recruited women for the first time. "

Some commentators believe NASA has long been reluctant to send female astronauts into space because the public reaction could be greater if women were involved in a catastrophic accident. Christa McAuliffe, the first American civilian astronaut to fly a space mission, was killed in the Challenger space shuttle crash in 1986. The shuttle exploded 73 seconds after launch when its external solid rocket booster failed.

McAuliffe's death may have had an even greater impact on the American public. But Margolis said it was more because McAuliffe was a teacher and a civilian than because of her gender. Margolis said,"McAuliffe's death has such an impact because she will be America's first space teacher. Her trip is highly anticipated. This is really shocking. "

McAuliffe's death led NASA to cancel the Civilian Space Program. "NASA believes the risks to civilians are too great to continue," Margolis said. "The shuttle is considered safe and comfortable orbital travel by the public. But Challenger was a tragedy, a reminder of danger. "

The first American woman to go into space was Sally Ride, who went into orbit on June 18, 1983, aboard the same Challenger shuttle three years before the 1986 space shuttle accident.

Although Ryder was the first American woman to go into space, she was the third woman in the world to do so. Twenty years before Ryder blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Valentina Tereshkova, a former Soviet cosmonaut, became the first woman to go into space aboard Vostok 6. Her journey into space was completed on June 16, 1963, just two years after the first human astronaut, Yuri Gagarin, accomplished the same feat.

Nineteen years after Tereshkova's flight, another woman went into space. Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya went into space in 1982, just a year before Ryder.

Now, the focus is on who will be the first woman to walk on the moon. Margolis explained that the selection process will be rigorous, but "that's the purview of NASA's astronaut office, which doesn't normally comment on the process. "All we can do is wait and see. "

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