Nasa engineers asked the first American female astronaut, Sally Ride, back in 1983, if 100 tampons would be enough for her 1-week mission.
Apparently the engineers may have had an understanding of menstruation…but they didn’t have an understanding of how menstruation works in zero-gravity. So, in true NASA fashion, they wanted to have redundancies on redundancies.
Sally informed them that 100 would be more than enough and she could do with far fewer.
In a 2002 oral history interview with Rebecca Wright, then coordinator for the NASA Johnson Space Center History Office, Ride was asked what items NASA had added to her flight kit, including the tampons in question.
“I remember the engineers trying to decide how many tampons should fly on a one-week flight; they asked, ‘Is 100 the right number?’” Ride recalled, according to the transcript. She replied that, “No, that would not be the right number.”
“They said, ‘Well, we want to be safe,’” continued Ride. “I said, ‘Well, you can cut that in half with no problem at all.’”
NASA engineers apparently had a history of sending women to space with inadequate supplies. In that same interview, Ride noted that the engineers had also decided that women astronauts would want makeup. So, they designed a makeup kit.
“The engineers at NASA, in their infinite wisdom, decided that women astronauts would want makeup — so they designed a makeup kit,” Ride was quoted as saying in a January 2018 tweet shared by the NASA History Office.
It is not uncommon for astronauts to head to space with their own personal hygiene kits, which have been issued as standard equipment for astronauts since the 1960s. These kits typically contain items like a toothbrush, lotion, deodorant, comb, and razor. But in a predominantly male field in the 1980s, experts apparently had limited knowledge in the types of hygiene items that would be necessary for a woman.
The optional — and unused — makeup kit included eyeliner, mascara, eye shadow, eye makeup remover, blusher, and lip gloss. It went on display in the Human Spaceflight at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, in 2002.
What a fascinating little piece of history! They even designed a makeup kit smh. Thanks for the rabbit hole!
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Nasa engineers asked the first American female astronaut, Sally Ride, back in 1983, if 100 tampons would be enough for her 1-week mission.
Apparently the engineers may have had an understanding of menstruation…but they didn’t have an understanding of how menstruation works in zero-gravity. So, in true NASA fashion, they wanted to have redundancies on redundancies.
Sally informed them that 100 would be more than enough and she could do with far fewer.
velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
What a fascinating little piece of history! They even designed a makeup kit smh. Thanks for the rabbit hole!
teslekova@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
Zero-g makeup that wouldn’t send particles floating around, with minimal weight… Interesting little project.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Yeah right. Like I am a man and I don’t wear makeup but that actually sounds fascinating. I would fly to space and wear it for science.
Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip 4 days ago
Lmao, thats a very silly story. That’s like 14 tampons a day 😅
Thanks for filling me in!
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Phrasing!
Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip 4 days ago
Hmmmmm, I could have considered that a little more before I chose to post 😅
Look, I’m very lonely okay, sometimes you’ll take what you can get 🥲