On Tuesday August 21, Vice President Pence chaired the sixth meeting of the recently revived National Space Council, a group originally chartered in 1958, disbanded in 1993 and then revived under the current administration to help chart the direction of America’s activities in space. There were four guest panelists highlighted at the end of the session. One spoke about nuclear power and nuclear thermal propulsion for spaceflight; one spoke about in situ resource utilization on the Moon and Mars; and one spoke about planetary exploration, the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s moon Titan in particular. All were interesting and appropriate topics for a meeting whose topic was, well, the future of space exploration.
And then there was Saralyn Mark, an M.D. and specialist in gender-based medicine, who spoke about gender bias. Her main point: NASA needs to — no kidding — realize there are gender differences because sending “gender diverse” crews to Mars is going to be difficult. At least I think that was her point. It was frankly hard to listen to because enough already!
We’ve been sending gender-diverse crews to space since 1983. We’ve had women do every job a man does in space. Every one. Space walks? Check. Shuttle commander? Check. Space Station commander? Check. Record for long-duration flights? Check. So what’s going to be the new gender-bias thing NASA needs to start — start? — paying attention to?
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