#GAReads | Why NASA's First All-Women Spacewalk Made History

“Why NASA's First All-Women Spacewalk Made History”:

It happened by accident, really. After a rocket launch aborted mid-flight, grounding two astronauts who were supposed to go to the International Space Station, NASA had to shift its schedule. Without thinking much of it, the agency announced that Christina Koch and Anne McClain — two women — would do the spacewalk instead.

“First All-Woman Spacewalk,” celebratory headlines declared, just in time for Women’s History Month, only to turn critical when it was announced that, actually, the spacewalk would not happen as planned, because NASA didn’t have enough spacesuits to fit the two female astronauts. (Both needed a size medium.) “Make another suit,” Hillary Clinton tweeted.

NASA did prepare another suit, and Ms. Koch and Jessica Meir made history on Friday when they ventured outside the International Space Station for a six-and-a-half-hour mission.

Read Jessica Bennett and Mary Robinette Kowal’s full article at The New York Times here…