More women astronauts needed?

I have to ask this because of a very interesting CNN article provided recently.

Apparently male astronauts tend to suffer some form of distortion of their optic nerve, with possible permanent damage to their vision. Keyword being male, as women astronauts are (so far) not affected by this.

While I'm pretty sure they'll figure out what the problem is in the long run, in the short run there's still work to be done in space, and it might be women who have to do it. Makes me wonder if discrimination along those lines, as unfortunate as it is, might be necessary for pushing space missions and such?

I don't think discrimination either way is good for any reason. In any case, of course more women astronauts are needed, but because of the fact that women can be just as smart and clever and able to endure the rigors of space exploration as any man. The thing is to gear recruiting in such a way as to make it look like a woman's contributions are as welcome and as necessary as any man's. And various other things to attract women to the scientific pursuits.

Also, in the short run, being discriminatory towards women is stupid because there are currently less women going into it and they'd have to spend years training people to figure out a medical problem that might be solved by the time those women are ready. But again, to discriminate because of a slight medical problem that probably has a cure is stupid.

It's more of the general issue of encouraging women to enter into math and engineering related subjects versus base science ones.

For purposes of space flight, I tend to lump that together in my head. <.< Space flight is very sciencey.

It is, but almost everyone working there is in engineering. I only know of physicists who work there otherwise and that also tends to be highly male.

Sound much like articles ages ago written about how people of fair skin were in greater danger of getting sun burn/cancer than someone with dark skin.

So people of fair skin shouldn't be out out in the bare sun so much but people of dark skin were free to be out all day, perhaps picking cotton.

Welcome to the Politically Correct Minefield.

Question: do we have sufficient female subjects to determine we haven't gotten a lucky streak?

Do we even have enough male subjects?

I should think that we are just trying, in a general manner, to make use of our whole population to get the few candidates that can be astronauts rather than just half.

Yeah, see, we really just need to work on making NASA seem like the awesome thing it is to attempt to join. Push harder on recruitment of everyone with the required skills and fitness and not bother to judge based solely on gender.

One advantage of women in space is that they have less mass than men, so cost less money to launch into orbit.

Do we really need more astronauts of either gender? I mean, what exactly do the people on the International Space Station do these days?

edited 11th Feb '12 11:27:40 PM by RavenWilder

Mostly small time experiments, as well as maintenance of the space station. The thing is, we could be doing a lot more than just the one measly space station if we actually put some money and manpower behind it.

I suppose you are right in that my scope is a bit limited. We'd be much better off if we used small children or "little people" as astronauts, in order to reduce the mass of our astronauts even further.

I'm sure he said that last thing at least in part to annoy you. The thing about women was probably serious.

Ya think? Doesn't reduce my sense of disbelief in any way though.

edited 12th Feb '12 12:37:12 AM by SCBracer

Yeah, I definitely have to agree with Bracer on this one.

And Raven, I'm not even sure how to respond to what you said.

edited 12th Feb '12 1:27:22 AM by Firebert

No need to discriminate. If women don't have the problem, and men do, then males are less fit for doing work in outer space. To the extent that males can keep up with females, then they'll stay in.

Obviously, we do need more women astronauts, but that, as has been said, is more about the fact that we need more women to go into science and engineering anyway.

On mass.

Ashamed that I did not think of females generally being lighter than males also means its cheaper to launch them into space.

Ditto children.

Also, with them being smaller, it will take less air, water and food to keep them alive.

A space staion staffed entirely by little girl astronauts is the wave of the future?

edited 12th Feb '12 1:44:30 AM by Natasel

Japan wholeheartedly approves this idea.

edited 12th Feb '12 2:12:55 AM by Ramidel

*whistles*

Time spent working on a Space Station while a kid would look good for Harvard application....

edited 12th Feb '12 2:18:11 AM by Natasel

Exactly what I was thinking!

Will there be a shonen version of this?

Unlikely.

But, still, I've read the books and it's a good series.