All-female spacewalkers make history

An inspiration to women and girls – Pelosi

THE WORLD’S first all-female spacewalking team made history high above Earth yesterday, working to replace a broken part of the International Space Station’s power grid.

As Nasa astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir hauled out wrenches, screwdrivers and power-grip tools, it marked the first time in a half-century of spacewalking that men weren’t part of the action.

America’s first female spacewalker from 35 years ago, Kathy Sullivan, was delighted. She said it was good to finally have enough women in the astronaut corps and trained for spacewalking for this to happen.

“We’ve got qualified women running the control, running space centres, commanding the station, commanding spaceships and doing spacewalks,” Sullivan said earlier this week. “And golly, gee whiz, every now and then there’s more than one woman in the same place.”

Nasa leaders, Girl Scouts and others cheered Koch and Meir on. Parents also sent in messages of thanks and encouragement via social media. Nasa included some in its TV coverage. “Go girls go,” two young sisters wrote on a sign in crayon.

At the same time, many expressed hope this will become routine in the future.

Tracy Caldwell Dyson, a threetime spacewalker who looked on from Mission Control in Houston, added: “Hopefully, this will now be considered normal.”

Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine watched the big event unfold from Washington headquarters.

“We have the right people doing the right job at the right time. They are an inspiration to people all over the world, including me. And we’re very excited to get this mission under way.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sent congratulations to Koch and Meir “for leaving their mark on history” and tweeted that they’re an inspiration to women and girls across America.

It took two decades for women to catch up with men in spacewalking.

The world’s first spacewalker, on March 18, 1965, Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, died last week.

Yesterday’s milestone spacewalk was the 421st for team Earth. |

NASA via AP IN THIS photo released by Nasa on Thursday, US astronauts Jessica Meir, left, and Christina Koch pose for a photo in the International Space Station. |