WOMEN IN SPACE
------------
John Pazmino
NYSkies Astronomy Inc
nyskies@nyskies.org
www.nyskies.org
2013 April 13 initial
2013 May 23 current
Introduction
----------
2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the first female space flight
by Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union. She orbited Earth with
Popovich in June 1963. April is the anniversary month for the first
human orbital flight by Yuri Gagarin, also of the Soviet Union. His
solo ride around the Earth ws in 1961.
In fact, each April, this year on the 16th, New York celebrates
the Gararin event with a Yuri's Night social party in a night club,
usually on Manhattan.
The Tereshkova flight is often missed from casual discourse about
space travel, altho those of men are routinely played up. Flights into
space by other women are submerged in the usual accounts of human
ventures into space.
Such marginalization of women in space, and in most other higher-
skill careers, is one of the sorrier features in our current society.
It sends a dissuasive and dismissive telegram to potential young
females who want to enter such careers. The present paucity of females
in the technical and engineering disciplines is the imprinted evidence
of this situation.
Here I summarize the meeting and insert collateral material
relating to human spaceflight.
NYSkies invite
------------
On 5 April 2013 I received an invite thru Myrna Coffino, a major
supporter and advocate for NYSkies. The United Nations was holding a
special session for the Tereshkoa anniversary and she obtained permits
for NYSkies members to attend! It was on Thursday 11 April 2013 at
10AM EDST. The session was a panel of three space leaders to discuss
and explain the opportunities of women in the aerospace industry.
I personally on occasion am invited to sit a UN meeting every so
often for astronomy, engineering, culture by a singular request to
specific persons. This is much like the annual invite I an favored
with for the engineer's inspection of Grand Central Terminal, which I
already received for the 2013 event. This invite in hand was the first
for NYSkies as a whole group.
Because NYSkies Seminars often relate to space projects, like the
Planck mission at the April 5 meeting, and its members follow space
news, I welcomed the invite. I posted the notice, adapted from Myrna's
formal papers, in the NYSkies yahoogroup and supplemental mailing list
on Monday the 8th of April.
I got several replies of deep interest, even tho the session was in
a workday morning. Most of us can't take time off, but a few can. I
myself slided my lunch hour to the meeting.
DPI-NGO
-----
This anniversary celebration was part of an ongoing program of
briefings and updates run by the United Nations for its Non
Governmental Organizations, NGO. These are outfits who, not eligible
for full statehood membership, are allowed to attend certain
categories of UN meetings to keep informed of matters of their
concern. There are many concurrent sets of these meetings in broad
classes to cater to the diversity of NGO interests.
The meetings are arranged thru the UN Department of Public
Information, whence the initials of the meeting sponsor DPI-NGO.
The invite noted that NYSkies attendees should sign in under
'NYSkies', in spite of it not [yet?] having NGO status at the UN. I
later learned that we were the only outside group invited to this
meeting. All other attendees represented standing NGOs.
Meeting hall
----------
The meeting was in the Salvation Army base on East 52nd St between
2nd and 3rd Avenues, not in the UN campus like most other DPI-NGO
events. It was a quick train ride from my office at Herald Square to
the Salvation Army, with the station exit there being in a shopping
concourse of a corner office tower.
On entering the building I found a lobby desk laid out with sign-
in sheets. I asked if there was a particular one to use. The agent
said they are all the same and I could sing on any one. I did: 'John
Pazmino, NYSkies'. The agent seemed pleased with that.
In the NYSkies announcement I advised to have to hand a photo ID
in case it's requested. Mine was not called up and I did not offer it.
It seemed the same for other attendees arriving at about the same
time. They were passed thru without asking for any papers.
The meeting was in a ground floor auditorium a few meters from the
street entrance. I never penetrated deeper into the building to see
its other features and rooms.
Audience
------
I entered the auditorium, with bench seating and a raised stage.
It appeared to hold about 200 people if packed in the benches. The
room was almost empty at first with more UN crew working at the stage
than audience in seats!
The invite stipulated that we be in our seats at 10AM and it was
quite 10 o'clock when I took my seat in a forward row of benches.
What's the story here?
Within the next fifteen minutes more attendees arrived, including
a couple NYSkiers who sat near me.
The full attendance was in place by 10:30AM, still only about 1/4 of
the seats, or about 50 total. The people were mostly women of mid to
elder age, with only a sprinkling of men. Most were in business or
other neat street dress. From the banter among them it seemed that
most were wisely about assorted world affairs.
On the stage was a table for the speakers, three at first, then
four when the moderator took the last seat in the later half of the
meeting. A microphone on flex cord offered ample level of sound.
For the Q&A a DPI agent passed around a wireless mike. SOme people
started their question before the mike reached them, causing the
audience to ask them to wait. They restarted their comment when the
microphone was in hand.
The room was well lighted from ceiling lamps and daylight thru
side windows. I had no trouble reading papers or writing notes.
The air was acclimated to a comfortable level, altho a few women
donned scarfs or sweaters. With mild weather outside it was probably
simpler to wear the garment than to crumple it on an empty seat.
National Space Society
--------------------
I was surprised to learn in the days after NYSkies received its
invite that there was no notice from the National Space Society, NSS,
national office or from its New York City chapter. The chapter is also
known as the New York Space Society.
I assumed that this panel on human spaceflight is a must-do event
for NSS members. Yet there was no advance news of it in any national
or local NSS news. NSS members attending the DPI-NGO session did so
thru the NYSkies invite, because many members associate with NYSkies.
One NSS national delegate did attend, Amanda Moore, who follows
the work of the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs, OOSA. It is homed in
Vienna, Austria, but Moore is from New York. She on two instances from
her audience seat gave comments in the Q&A.
One was to ask if certain upcoming OOSA events can be held in New
York. The response was that DPI was already in comms with the Vienna
office and is working on holding space-related activities in the City.
On/about April 13th the chapter issued its May 2013 newsletter
Astro-Gaia. It, in the extract here, notes the meeting as a past event
with no anticipation of a later account, like from Moore.
-------------------------------------------------
UN's INTERNATIONAL DAY OF SPACEFLIGHT CELEBRATES 50 YEARS OF
FEMALE ASTRONAUTS
On April 11, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first orbital
spaceflight by a woman, 26-year-old Valentina Tereshkova on June 16,
1963 (a tandem mission with Pavel Popovich in a separate Vostok),
there was an invitation-only [NYSkies members were invited), non-
public UN-NGO celebration in Manhattan of women space travelers, an
observance held through the declaration two years ago by a U.N.
General Assembly Resolution declaring April 12 as the International
Day of Human Space Flight. Amanda Moore is the NSS UN-NGO
representative and works at the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Anniversary
---------
Because April 2013 is the anniversary for both the first human, a
male, to orbit Earth and the first female to travel in space, also by
Earth orbit, the speaker's dialog often swopped between the two for
the meeting purpose.
Nominally the meeting was a retro- and prospect on women in
spaceflight. Almost from the start it enlarged to deal with the place
of women in all of the aerospace community and in all technical and
scientific fields.
The meeting opened with a reading of UN General Assembly
resolution A/RES/65/271 setting April 12th as 'International day of
human space flight'. It was enacted on 2011 April 7 with implicit
recognition of both flights of Gagarin and Tereshkova.
Look again at that UN resolution again. It sets the International
Day of Human Space Flight on the date of Gagarin's, the man's,
flight. Tereshkova's, the woman's, flight is subsumed into it.
A couple people who responded to me about the invite asked if this
event was some congratulation of the USSR and Communism. From the
wording of the invitation it could be interpreted that way. I myself
figured that this would be a mistake because too many UN countries
know pretty damn well what the Soviet presence in their territory was
really like.
This session was entirely separate from other celebrations for the
space anniversary, virtually entirely centered on the Gargarin
flight!, else where in the City. Yuri's Night comes on April 16th in
Gramercy Park MH and the April 19th NYSkies Seminar presents a show
'How we went to the Moon 100 years ago'.
Moderator
-------
The modertor for the DPI-NGO meeting was slated as Maria-Luisa
Chavez, chief of the DPI-NGO operations. She was detained in travel to
the meeting. A substitute DPI agent standed in for her but I missed
her name. She seemed up to speed, perhaps from working with Chavez.
After the dedicated remarks of the three panelists, the moderator
took the fourth seat at the table and engaged in the Q&A.
Speakers
------
The panel of three speakers was a top-flight selection of space
leaders! They were:
-----
Evgeny Zagainov from the Russian mission to the UN
Anousheh Ansari of the X-Prize and first female space tourist
Susan Chodakewitz of Tetra Tech AMT
-----
The three covered a government, civilian, and industry sector of
spaceflight. While Ansari heads up a aerospace business, she was
selected mostly for her trip to ISS as a tourist. Chodakewtiz also
works educational services for young females in science. Zagainov
walked to the meeting from his mission house. The other two arrived
from out-of-state.
Each speaker gave an initial statement, then elaborated on their
themes for females in the space program.
After this dialog there was an extended Q&A. This segment occupied
about 2/3 of the two-hour meeting. The moderator took the fourth seat
at the table to field questions with the three speakers.
Women in space
------------
An early comment was that it is still necessary to have dedicated
discussion about 'women in space'. It should be the goal to eventually
work just with 'humans in space' with no gender distinction.
Zagainov went to the Moon describing the Soviet and Russian
achievements in space, noting the part women played in that endeavor.
He was careful to blend the USSR into Russia at the crossover point in
their history.
He was fuzzed up when walking thru the long hiatus when Russia
excluded females as cosmonaut candidates. The country resumed
accepting women applicant only a few years ago.
One of the main problems for the US in attracting women as
astronauts is the just about every astronaut is chosen from the ranks
of USAF or USN aircraft pilots. With so few female pilots there just
aren't many in the pool to pick from. Until the pool enlarges to other
skilled careers besides only pilots, there may always be far too few
women among astronaut candidates.
The reason to use military pilots as the source for astronauts is
glatt simple. These folk are already trained in many skills and to
handle complicated machines and are disciplined to cope with dangerous
situations. Going beyond this source may complicate the training and
instruction requirements for future astronauts. For sure, no astronaut
can come from a person who is merely interested and enthusiastic about
space travel.
The preparation for space tourist is simpler than for an
astronaut/cosmonaut, yet still arduous and rigorous. Ansari described
her travails at Russia's Star City for about six months before
qualifying to fly to ISS.
The requirements for being a space tourist include the ability to
set aside long time spans, six months at least, a faculty very few
people enjoy. Folk in retirement could afford the time but they are
entering an age of rising medical and physical erosion. This would
quickly disqualify them from space tourism.
It also came out in the dialog that women have biological needs
that in the early Space Age were never considered. The Space Age began
when 'men' were the ones going into space with women watching them on
television. Space-related fixtures, tools, operating procedures still
often ignore women.
When a female is on the crew of a spaceflight they function as
completely and competently as the male crew. Of course, if they
couldn't, they would not be in the crew but washed out already. It
does show that, with the fair chance and honest consideration, women
can perform in space crews as well as men.
Inertia and weight
----------------
When describing her experience on ISS, Ansari did a goof. She
mentioned that men and women do equally well in space because they are
in zero-G. This is only partially correct and is a very common
confusion between inertia and weight. Weight is the force pulling on a
body against the resistance of the ground or other support. Inertia is
the resistance of a body against a change of motion, say from rest to
being carried.
To move a body you must overcome its inertia. A man in general has
stronger upper body muscles to do this than a woman. He can manhandle
a machine part while an other crew bolts it into place. The typical
woman may have a harder go at doing this, altho she can easily do the
bolt work.
Ansari was a passenger on ISS, not part of the operating crew.
Like other tourists she did not actively run the spaceship. She
handled only small loads, like food, tableware, clothing. She may just
not have realized that the heavy items were moved about against their
larger inertia, requiring substantial muscle strength.
The mixup with weight and inertia is a patheticly prevalent one
among spacefarers, leading to some ridiculous descriptions of how we
will live in space.
First Iranian
-----------
Ansari noted she is the first Iran space traveler. She missed the
incident about her Iran shoulder patch. NASA went ape-crap wild when
she wanted to include on her flight suit an emblem of her native
country. After a major brou-ha-ha she left off the patch.
I don't know if the meeting was recorded or there was an Iran
'spy' in the audience. The audience was asked to turn off recording
devices, yet I saw many people taking pictures of the stage with cell
phones and tablets. Assuming some recording, the president of Iran
will not like it.
On 4 February 2013 Iran president Ahmadmejad chimed up with his
desire to be the first Iran astronaut. He was already upstaged by a
woman and a monkey! This incident raised hysterical laughter when a
commentator in the US acted surprised. 'He just was on a space ride
last month', alluding to the Iran monkey flight in January 2013.
Ansari movie
----------
Much of the Q&A centered on Ansari's experience on ISS. The bulk
of this discussion at the DPI-NGO meeting could be satisfied by the
movie Ansari made about her ride. She composed 'Space tourist', first
played in 2010 at Paley Center in New York. I with other NYSkies
members went to this show.
The movie was never mentioned in this meeting, not even as a
reference. While there probably was no commercial promotion allowed,
the movie was really a documentary of the ISS trip and it included a
deep introspection of the Russian space program not shown else where.
I wrote a summary of 'Space tourist' with added discussion of
Russia, at 'www.nyskies.org/articles/pazmino/ansari.htm'.
Space tourism
-----------
With Ansari as an actual space tourist, many questions related to
the use of outer space in the tourism industry. Ansari fielded most of
these questions.
Tee cost per ride today for space travel ranges from about
$200,000 for a suborbit 1-hour ride to about $30 million for a week
stay at ISS. Few ordinary people can afford this cost. In Ansari's
case, her company paid for her trip.
She said that the way to drive prices down is thru competition
among space companies. As each attracts customers they will devise
cheaper methods of reaching outer space.
On the other hand I note that NO space rides are running now, in
early 2013. after about ten years of heavy work by several private
spaceship companies, only the USS rides -- arranged by Russia -- were
available. They are suspended now because seats on the Soyuz capsule
are needed for ISS crew with none left for tourists.
The US government does not cater to space tourists. Trips to ISS
are operated thru the Russian space agency. Even then, Ansari was
confined to only the Russian half of ISS on her trip.
She emphasized that there is a definite amount of energy required
to loft a given mass into space. Given the immense work so far to
achieve just suborbit elevation, with no attempt to circle the Earth,
it will take some unanticipated new and cheap energy source to move
space travel into the public market.
With the means to hand now and for the foreseeable future there is
no way other than chemical rockets to hoist customers into space. Such
means are innately horrificly expensive.
Ansari gave an example from her telcomms work. When mobile
telephony was first offered the units were heavy, some needing a whole
automobile to carry them. They also were expensive, at least $1,000 to
purchase the unit apart from the ongoing service fees. Today mobile
phones are sometimes given free to new customers, on signing into a
service contract, and they are carried in the pocket.
She missed showing that there was a positive strong desire for
mobile telcomms that impelled the development of better and cheaper
products. People wanted and needed to talk to each other while away
from a wired landline.
There is still, after a half-century, no such motive for any
ordinary person to take a space trip, other than for the hell of it
once in a lifetime. Trips for other purposes, such as hypersonic
flights between distant airports, is not yet practical.
She expressed the hope that some day buying a spaceship ticket
will be as simple as buying an airline ticket. I can't believe this
silly analogy persists! Any airline traveler knows fully well that
getting a ticket and then boarding the vehicle is hardly a simple
task. Does Ansari go about by Amtrak and Greyhound?
Language
------
The panel seemed very cautious to speak of 'human', not 'manned',
spaceflight. In the US 'manned' is still prevalent in space
litterature, even in current works. Space travel started in the era
when almost no females were enrolled in higher-level posts in
industry. Women were still treated as hired hands to work in the
clerical fields like typing and filing and reception.
Just about all other careers and job names were stripped of their
gender, like 'letter carrier' for 'mailman' and 'firefighter' for
'fireman', much of spacefaring retains the gendered terms.
There is also the legacy of space travel movies in the early space
age. They showed women as auxiliary crew or even only as ornaments to
accompany the real spacemen. They also tended to wear scanty outfits
with accentuated curves.
In spite of the apparent care to keep 'manned' out of the dialog,
there was a curious lapse of gender avoidance. Female middle to high
school students were commonly called 'girls'. While this is stricta
mente grammaticly correct the better term may be 'young women',
'teens', 'youths', In a few instances the speakers said 'women and
girls'!
Social attitude
-------------
In the old days, girls didn't belong with the men. Men did real
work, had real jobs, made real money. Girls were for the enjoyment and
pleasure of the men and to perform household and family functions.
When a woman did reach a man's level of success, she was commonly
treated as something odd, weird, strange.
If she was eventually accepted, she was set upon by the hoochie-
koochie routine. A visitor to the office is taken to her: ' And this
is our new girl engineer'. Her male coworkers would muse about
situations on the job for the woman, like a fantasy sit-com.
Even today some proposals for future spaceflight minimize the
standing of women. Dennis Tito, of all people as the first human space
tourist!, in March 2013 put out a plan to fly a 'married couple' to
Mars and back in 2018.
Why a married couple. The idea is to allow means for the man to
maintain familial relations during the journey of a couple years. He
notes that so far a man is in ISS for a half-year while his wife stays
home. The man loses his companion, probably adding to the stress and
anxiety during the trip.
Apart from the miserable attitude implied in the plan, there are
social concepts that are rudely ignored. Why must the couple be
'married'? Can not the same purpose of the Mars trip be satisfied with
a civil union or just a close friendship?
Tito also seems ignorant of the marriage conditions in many US
states, where same-sex couples may earn full marriage status. Does the
Tito plan include these married couples?
If we adhaere to the stipulation of an opposite-sex married
couple, Tito seems utterly ignorant of outfitting his spacecraft for
familial activity. No other spacecraft [admittedly] properly accounted
for familial activity. NASA denies to the max all thought of letting
these activities on its spaceflights.
An other modern example is the suborbital rides by Virgin
Galactic. The intent is that each person maintain good behavior during
the ride. The firm is constantly propositioned by adult entertainment
studios to film familial activity during the zero-G period of the
ride. The waiver is that the riders may be any mix of gender. So far
Virgin Galactic rejected all such ideas.
Thru the entire discussion about women in the aerospace and other
advanced fields, the meeting was carried by the three females, Ansati,
Chodakewitz, and the substitute moderator. Zagainov more or less
offered a word from time to time but mainly keeped to himself.
Women in STEM
-----------
In addition to hard science of the sort associated with space
travel, there are other collateral fields of immense importance to
society. These are collected into the initials STEM: Science,
Technology, Engineering, Mathematics. In the boro of Queens the
initials are written in reverse order, starting with 'M'.
Of these only maths was a traditionally 'girl' subject in school.
The others were often closed to young women. They often weren't
allowed even to enroll in them.
In my high school years, the boys were assigned to shop, wood and
metal and joined hobby clubs using tools and kits. The girls were put
in homemaking or business classes to become housewifes, office clerks,
concierges and ushers, store workers.
There were, and still are, New York City high schools dedicated to
various industries like transit, automotive, electrical skills,
aviation, seafaring, printing & publishing, building trades. Altho
opne to both genders, they are overwhelmingly attended by yound men.
In my time I attended conferences for the utility industry where
there was a 'ladies's program'. The men went to the meetings, where
they moved and shaked the electric power industry. Their wifes (never
just a companion!) were taken on visits to musea, gardens, famous
homes, brunches, decoratiing and furnishing talks, cooking demos.
I personally know of several female astronomy colleagues who in
school were actually advised to skip the sciences for being too hard
or not suitable for women. Many of these astronomers went to other
more accommodating schools and eventually became accomplished
astronomers.
A female youth intimated away from science get the drift to stay
away. A woman at a technical meeting and shunted off to a boat ride
gets the clue to forget about technology.
This attitude shrinks the pool of potential women candidates for
high-level employment and careers.
Routes to STEM
------------
The situation for women is orders better, in the US, now than in
the late 20th century. It really did take a full and more generation
since about 1960 to wash thru the grosser prevalent old-boy mentality
toward women. Altho on a formal level women are equalizing with men in
the STEM fields, there are pockets deep antiquated feelings.
In other countries the indigenous society may still maintain a
subjugated subordinate role for women. In some cases it is formally
enforced by law or custom. In others it's part of a belief scheme,
real or finagled. In a few cases, violation of the established place
of a woman carries severe penalty.
The theme of the speakers was that in the US we must get the
attention of women students in their lower teens. This is in their
middle school grades. Youths should be exposed to the STEM fields thru
books, films, videos, exhibits, lectures, visits. The school should
admit teen women into the 'boy' courses in STEM.
Phony future?
-----------
The hoochie-koochie factor has to go, cold turkey. Same with
pandering and condescendent behavior toward women.
The first of two comments I offered was the problem of handling
the apparent phniness of attracting women into disciplines with few
current and likely fewer future career opportunities. A woman may feel
she is exploited or even abused when she finds that after all her
effort, schmaltzed by possibly pandering attitudes, she ends up hardly
better in life than otherwise.
The reply from the speakers was that we can't make the furtherance
of women a one-track path. It has to be the entry to a wide field of
prospects. Yes, there will always be only a handful of astronauts per
country but the work done to aspire toward astronaut status are
applicable to a broad range of other careers.
Home astronomy
------------
I offered two comments. The first was that for attracting and
supporting women in STEM, elaborated above. The other was a reminder
that in place right now is a structure for women to enjoy and take
part in the space program without the machoism and old-boys burden. It
also is free of muscular strength and playing with dangerous and
complicated machines.
By engaging in home-based astronomy, which is one of the greatest
beneficiaries of the space program, women can wage a profession as
fully equal to that by men.
Home astronomy is often presented as requiring a telescope to work
with. This is driven by the need to satisfy advertisers who by and
large sell astronomy telescopes, gadgets, equipment.. The litterature
caters to this income source by pressing readers to buy these products
to become a fully-vested home astronomer.
As fate has it, the bulk of telescopes are heavy, clumsy,
mechanical devices that are designed by and for men. In fact, there ae
some telescopes that can not even be looked thru by a women by its
fundamental design flaw. The scope structure blocks a female body from
getting the eye to the eyepiece.
Telescopes can also come with a truckload of parts and
accessories, all of which presume a masculine mentality and manuality
to deal with. Women in many home astronomy settings are turned off and
leave the fold.
This is nonsense! A person -- male or female -- can carry out a
vivid and valid astronomy profession with no telescope at all. New
York has a peculiar setting where having a typical telescope can be a
ridiculous burden. Carrying a 20-kilo crate up stairs in a walkup
building is no simple task for a husky man. It can be impossible for a
woman of light build. Neither man nor woman will for long carry such
an load on the train or bus to a stargazing session. Once that's it.
The result is the in the City home astronomy evolved away from
masculine attributes to more mental and cerebral skills. There is also
the thoro leveling of the playing field with computers and Internet,
which are gender-free in their operation.
At least in New York, home of the United Nations, women can enter
and stay in the astronomy profession and, in the process, be
integrated into the space program.
Conclusion
--------
This DPI-NGO program was an excellent commemoration of human
spaceflight and in hindsight probably should have been open to the
general public. The auditorium was amply large enough for any
reasonably expected number of attendees and there seemed nothing
privileged or reserved to only UN officials in the presentation. As it
was, it did a wise and welcome gesture to give Ms Coffino the invite
for NYSkies to attract some city astronomers.
The discussion quickly shifted to a general one about promoting
STEM activities to women, not just the aerospace industry. This is a
topic of quite broad concern in, among the sciences, astronomy. Most
astronomy is carried out in an academic setting, where female
astronomers, many being students with higher diplomas, are also
subject to the masculine pressures of that world.
The sentiments expressed at this DPI-NGO meeting definitely
command serious consideration for home astronomy which may be the best
climate, in the City for sure, for women to take part in a STEM-
related profession. Home astronomers else where should do the effort
to accept women into astronomy.in an honest and honorable manner.