io9
This brightly colored astronaut appeared on the cover of "What Shall I Be? The Exciting Game of Career Girls," a board game from 1976. Astronaut was certainly a step up from some of the traditionally feminine careers presented in an earlier edition of the game (air hostess, for example), and yet there are two big things wrong with this picture. Do you know what they are?
First, while you can't blame the forward-looking makers of What Shall I Be? for including astronaut as a career path, there weren't any female astronauts when the game came out in 1976. Six women were among the 35 members of NASA's class of 1978—they were the first female astronauts. Among them was Sally Ride, who became the first American woman in space in 1983. (The Commies beat us to it by 20 years; Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova blasted into orbit in 1963, while NASA was still dithering over whether space travel would affect a woman's "special"—as in "gimme a tampon"—physiology.)
Second, the astronaut on the What Shall I Be? box was depicted walking on the lunar surface—something no woman has done. Shuttle commander Eileen Collins almost certainly would have been the first to do so had there been an active lunar program at NASA when she was flying space missions in the 1990s. It's a technicality perhaps, but the fact remains: it's 2008 and a woman has yet to walk on the moon.
Comments
I was thinking more along the lines of "The suit's not pressurized"...
You can't really blame a board game for our great leap backwards after making it to the moon...
We couldn't get anyone there now if we tried...
Why the only plus of pulling the plug on the Apollo program early is that there is still one Saturn V to look at.. That thing is insanely impressive...
[www.nasa.gov]
I thought it was the fact that her uniform was blue, since even today gadget-makers seem to think women only want their technology in pink.*
(*Breast Cancer Awareness products excluded based on purpose of recognizable, uniform color-scheme.)
Perhaps it was somewhat unrealistic, but in '76 the Moon landings were only 4 years removed, and people were pretty sure we'd be going back their sooner rather than later. They did not reckon with how fickle the American public's imagination and desire can e\be.
@Cin: thats what i thought also....the over thing i thought was how they put a breast on her knee....
@92BuickLeSabre: If you really want to get technical, the style of suit/helmet she's wearing is along the lines of the old Mercury spacesuits, which would not have been well-suited for lunar work, being form-fitting. Also, she does not have a gold-mirrored visor to block harmful solar radiation, and she would not be walking around the Moon with three giant metal tanks on her back like a diver.
@NefariousNewt: Damn it.. I was going to mention the lack of the mirrored visor. (good call on the Mercury style suit too)
Also apparently Greenland has been removed to make way for shipping...
At least they got the global warming right.. look at the north pole, barely a spec of ice...
Also, she seems to have "put on her face" (blush and eyshadow). "Can't collect moon rocks until I look good for the handsome aliens...."
Those boots have no heels! How does she walk sexily on the moon?
Plus, the "Rocks" bag (as if they'd label it like that, so as not to confuse it with the trail mix bag, I guess) has its label partly obscured so that it sort of looks like "Cocks", and how disturbing is that?
@CJC: My thoughts exactly! "Better get pretty for any eligible Moon Bachelors!"
@CJC: And her hair. You have to make time to give your hair that little upcurl, even in space.
@NefariousNewt: Clearly, I don't want to / can't actually get technical, but I wonder whether she would have a little cloth sack labeled "rocks."
@92BuickLeSabre: As I recall, they did use cloth sacks for samples, though I don't remember them being labeled "Rocks". I'm pretty sure the guys would have known what to put in the bag, which says something about the intellectual level that NASA assigned her.
You wouldn't be able to see stars, as the sun's reflection of the lunar surface would be too bright and your vision woudn't be able to see them. (especially with the full earth in the background).
Her flag patch is on the wrong arm - every moonwalking pic I can find has the mission patch on the right arm, the flag on the left.
Also, assuming NASA follows the military practice of flipping the flag so the stripes point to the rear, hers is backwards.
@CAPNCALAMITY - awesome.
No one's made the "she's not making me a pot pie" joke yet? I suppose it is too obvious.
I'd also like to note that the moon seems to have acquired jaundice.
@Slatz_Grobnik: You were not aware it is made of cheese?
so women in space are still cleaning up after us.-blurey
In 6th grade (in 1966) when asked by the teacher what I wanted to be, I believe I was the only girl that said "Astronaut". When nearing high school graduation in 1977 I looked into trying for the astronaut program, but in the days before Lasik one had to have 20/20 vision without glasses, and I was nearsighted. I even went so far as to go through the Air Force enlistment trials (my ASFAB scores were through the roof) but I had a horrible experience of rooming with a Neanderthal type grunt that spent all night calling boys on the phone. I eventually went into medicine with the idea of being a flight surgeon but ...
Now I invest in ORB and SpaceDev and hope that someday I will get there...
@halloweenjack: Wow. It is true. She has a bag full of cocks....
It should be noted that Valentina Tereshkova's space launch was basically a publicity stunt to "prove" that women in the Soviet Union were equal to men. AFAIK, there has not been a single other female cosmonaut.
Not that the long time it took the US to put women in space was admirable, but I'm reluctant to credit the Soviets for being advanced because they sent up a single token woman.
And the first thing I noticed about that picture -- like a couple of other commenters -- was the astronaut's makeup. "Girls, you don't have to be frumpy while walking on the moon."
In space, no one can hear you break a nail.
This reminds me of the Bond film Moonraker, where 007 investigates some space-related shenanigans. He meets up with "Dr. Goodhead" (OMG, Ian Fleming, you were a sick, sick man) and in Roger Moore's smarmiest style says with surprised condescension, "A woman!"
The parts with Jaws in space ruled, though.
clearly the picture was designed by men
Women of Space: [tinyurl.com]
and, about Jerrie Cobb:
"As the Space Age was beginning, Jerry Cobb was quickly gaining a reputation in the aviation community as one of the most experienced in the high performance propeller aircraft of her day. As America began selecting the first astronauts in 1959, Jerrie was picked by the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque to be the first woman to undergo the same physical and psychological fitness testing regimen as the Mercury Astronaut Selection Tests. After passing the tests with flying colors, Jerrie was asked to recruit 25 other qualified women pilots. Twelve passed the first series of tests."
[tinyurl.com]
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