Female Astronaut Sets Space Record

Raver32 writes to tell us that U.S. astronaut Sunita 'Suni' Williams has set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman. Breaking the previous record of 188 days set by astronaut Shannon Lucid in '96, Williams has lived aboard the space station since last December. "'It's just that I'm in the right place at the right time,' Williams, 41, said when Mission Control in Houston congratulated her on the record. 'Even when the station has little problems, it's just a beautiful, wonderful place to live.'"

Comments

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Her fellow crewmen on the ISS were heard asking where their dinner was.

By a woman?

[TheRaven64]

Are women in some way better or worse adapted to living in space than men? If not, then why is this at all relevant. Is there a record for longest single spaceflight by a blond, or a black person? What about 'longest single spaceflight by someone with the Slashdot UID TheRaven64?' That record, at 0s, is held by me. W00t!

Once you start picking subsets of humans who have achieved something, it quickly becomes meaningless.

Re:By a woman?

[CastrTroy]

If you look at the Guinness book of world records, you will see that a lot of the records are differentiated by sex. When you think about it, it's kind of odd. Women have been fighting for equal rights for so long, and yet in situations such as this, women are considered inferior, or at least, different.

Re:By a woman?

[stoolpigeon]

I can see where you are coming from - but I think that in America (she is an American astronaut) there is some value to emphasizing the possibilities to certain groups in the past that were told that they were incapable of certain things, be they intellectual or physical limitations. If you think that isn't so, just take a look at the number of jokes in this thread that are born out of a disregard for women as capable. I don't want to be all pc about this but I think it is a real issue - I guess as a father with daughters I'm more sensitive to it.

Re:By a woman?

[Anonymous Coward]

What struck me upon reading the article was the passage that mentioned women in zero gravity stop ovulating after two to three months. I think this may have serious implications for long-term human space travel.

Re:By a woman?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Insane drug and sex parties with zero-G Kamasutra moves lasting for days and days without fear of pregnancy? Is that what you meant?

Re:By a woman?

[CastrTroy]

If anybody has ever worked in place where the staff was mostly/all female, they will tell you that the work place dynamics were not good. Arguing over stupid little things and holding grudges against other coworkers is common. I don't mean to generalize here, but as far as I've heard, workplaces with mostly women end up being very hostile. Contrast that to the male dominated places where I worked. Arguments did happen, as they always will, but most men are able to move on and forget about so that the work gets done.

Re:By a woman?

[Timesprout]

I agree, I find women in the workplace are generally polite to each other and then frequently turn around and bitch like anything behind each others back. However the office wokspace is a very different environment to a nuclear submarine where you are deployed for 6-8 months at a time in a 100m long narrow metal tube, sharing bunks, monotonous shifts etc and there is just no getting away from each other. Thats what the study concluded women dealt with better than men with improved discipline and efficiency IIRC.

Re:By a woman?

[svendsen]

Can we focus more on the all female crew and "sharing bunks" please?

Re:By a woman?

[billstewart]

There are records where gender directly makes a difference - most children, for instance.

And there are records where gender influences body shape, size, strength, and therefore separate records might make sense - running fast or far, lifting weights, etc.

But then there are records like this where gender mainly influences the social environment - of those women who wanted to be astronauts when they were kids, or who kind of fell into it later after being doctors or test pilots, the percentage who could get through the prejudice of the military (who are the main source for astronauts) or the other civilian organizations that NASA deals with is going to be lower than the number of men who have that.

So it's kind of like "Record for being in space longest with one hand tied behind your back". You can either give extra karma points to the person who sets the record, or deduct them from the people who discourage women from being astronauts.

Re:By a woman?

[stoolpigeon]

hot racking is not what you think it is.

Re:By a woman?

[everphilski]

No, the concept of sending a ship out into space to explore our neighbors - basically a 1-way expedition spanning generations - might not be a possibility if we can't start up a second or third generation in space.

Re:By a woman?

[stoolpigeon]

I think there is ample objective evidence that institutionally men and women are not equal now. So I guess the answer to your first question is No. With that in mind I would say we can think about your second question once we have passed 1 generation.

Re:By a woman?

[Waffle Iron]

a 1-way expedition spanning generations - might not be a possibility if we can't start up a second or third generation in space.

Given what has been shown to happen in just over a year on a space station, anybody who spends a decade or more in zero-G would probably end up totally physically incapacitated. Subsequent generations of zero-G dwellers would probably rapidly devolve into a gelatinous mass. Therefore, any long-term space travel would certainly have to utilize some form of artificial gravity.

Re:By a woman?

[drinkypoo]

Given what has been shown to happen in just over a year on a space station, anybody who spends a decade or more in zero-G would probably end up totally physically incapacitated. Subsequent generations of zero-G dwellers would probably rapidly devolve into a gelatinous mass. Therefore, any long-term space travel would certainly have to utilize some form of artificial gravity.

Artificial gravity is a triviality when you have enough mass to work with. You just rotate the whole fucking ship. Easy as pie and you're not flying by the seat of your ass anyway, you're flying by computer and so the direction your body is pointed (as compared to the direction of the ship's travel) is fully irrelevant.

Re:By a woman?

[SlashV]

women are considered inferior, or at least, different. Do you suggest that they're not different ? Have you ever seen one ? Boy is this Slashdot ;D

heh

[stoolpigeon]

my initial reaction was that they shouldn't make a big deal over it based purely on sex - but the more I think about it, I hope that this is something that inspires more women to be involved in engineering and other male dominated fields. I think it would be beneficial to all of us.

Obligatory

[wampus]

She also set the record for the most number of orbits with the turn signal on.

"...by a woman"

[Hatta]

Does it seem a little demeaning to anyone else that this is just the longest spaceflight "by a woman"? It makes it seem like the girls are playing "Me Too!" Who cares if it's a woman or a man. Just let me know when the longest space flight by a person of any gender occurs, that will be note worthy.

Neat, so when do we stop.

[ushering05401]

I know many fem rights activists as my sister is an advocate for the cause (Berkeley based). Many of those ladies get offended by the constant separation of female achievement from male achievement.

So the question is when do we stop. Previously a woman spent 188 days in space. This woman broke that record. Another woman will break the new record. I get the feeling that people are holding up these records as some sort of validation that we now treat women equal to men.

Reality is, we are treating women equal to men when they are judged by the same criteria. The day that I see a story on the /. front page that a woman holds the *overall* record for time in space is the day I will start believing that humanity has come to terms with equality between the sexes.

Then again, my experience conversing with fem related activists shows me that as many women would disagree with this point as might agree.

Just something to think about. In my mind this story is kinda equivalent to the old example of hidden racism... the one related to calling a black person 'well spoken'... which is apparently offensive to many black people (for several reasons) but thought of as a compliment by most white people. If you are unfamiliar with this concept ask a sociology grad to explain it, as I do not have links to the studies.

Regards.

Too long in space

[Animats]

If we had a decent launch capability, nobody would be spending that long up there. Things like this happen because of launch delays, not because anybody is supposed to spend that long on a mission.

The record is held by Valeriy Polyakov, who spent 431 days on Mir. He had the unfortunate experience of being up while the USSR was coming apart.

If it were true, yeah.

[zippthorne]

But I seem to recall some broken Russian computer equipment recently, so I'm not inclined to believe they made it the full 188.

Re:sex in space!!

[steveo777]

The average /. reader is wondering that same question about anywhere.

Astronaut Sets Female Space Record ...

[Palmyst]

is the more accurate headline.

I disagree

[everphilski]

there is some value to emphasizing the possibilities to certain groups in the past that were told that they were incapable of certain things, be they intellectual or physical limitations.

I guess as a father myself, I disagree. Instead of setting up seperate bars for men and women, the playing field should be level for everyone. Since we now tell our daughters that they don't have those incapabilities and limitations that prior generations had, shouldn't we tell them that they can attain as much as any individual on the face of this earth? Why are we construing a second set of records? "Sergei Krikalev holds the space duration record of 748 days in orbit, but the highest by a woman is ... "

Doesn't that sound demeaning to you?

An exception I do agree with is sports and olympic events. Our bodies are physically built differently. I understand setting up physical competitions that are gender based. But in the workplace and in educational pursuits, I don't see why we need to set up a second tier of markers for our daughters. They should be as capable as anyone, right?

Re:I disagree

[stoolpigeon]

Well I agree about telling our daughters that they are capable. But female role models in certain fields are very scarce due to the past discrimination. So I guess I'm glad to see a story about a female astronaut, for whatever reason.
 
I don't know that it sounds demeaning though, to anyone who understands the context. I for one, having been a part of the Naval aviation community, fully understand the kind of obstacles this woman overcame to get where she is. Obstacles no man in her class had to face.
 
Go look at her wikipedia write up. Notice how it starts? All the emphasis on her heritage? It looks sort of like some of the lists that are being created to mock my posts. People of just about any race or nationality are extremely proud to be associated with the space program and go out of their way to point it out. Why women shouldn't be allowed to be the same, I have no idea.
 
My initial reaction to the article was that if I had to guess - she is annoyed at the focus on her gender. And maybe she is. But the more I thought about it, the more I was pleased to see a woman achieving this getting attention - whatever the reason.

Re:I disagree

[lav-chan]

But that's just statistics. If you compare black men to white men there will be a similar difference, it just won't be as pronounced. That goes for just about any generalisation you can make about women and men -- they talk different (so do black and white people), they dress different (so do black and white people), they eat different foods (so do black and white people), they listen to different music (so do black and white people), they watch different movies (so do black and white people), they have different body features (so do black and white people), they have different susceptibilities to disease (so do black and white people), they have different crime rates (so do black and white people), et cetera. The only differences are the degree and the fact that people inexplicably care more when something is different across sexes rather than across races or nationalities or eye colours.

The fact that women will never be first place in bench-pressing doesn't bother me at all. You probably won't either. That doesn't mean we should invent some fictional prerequisites to give you a better chance at recognition (world bench press record for people named [insert your name] who live in [insert your state/province/whatever]).

You've opened my eyes

[Kwiik]

[quote]the playing field should be level for everyone[/quote]
We should tell boys as well as girls that they are worthless and will grow up to bag groceries
that way nobody will try

(and I'll keep my job when I'm 40 years older)

What does 188 days in space do with you?

[hcgpragt]

Does anyone know what such a long time in space does with your body?
What would be differences in impact between woman and men?
I seem to remember a documentary about Russian cosmonauts who's bone-mass had become alarmingly small after being in weightlessness too long.
Is that different these days?

H
p.s Please keep it scientific....

Re:Parent Funny! Mod Up and Loosen up! :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me ask you, would you be saying 'Loosen up' if it were a racist joke? If it's just a joke, I would, I believe that in the context of a joke, nothing should ever be off-limits. Just because someone tells a racist joke or finds one funny, doesn't mean they're a racist, the same thing goes for sexist humor. There are plenty of acts by women comics about how men are pigs, look at porn all day, and beat off at the drop of a hat. They're sexist jokes about men, so should I (being one) have to take offense? Of course not, because I'm intelligent enough to understand that it's a fucking joke!

If you don't find offensive comedy funny, that's fine, but plenty of people do, and they shouldn't have to be denied a form of entertainment because of a whiny minority that takes shit too seriously.

Re:Parent Funny! Mod Up and Loosen up! :)

[JimDaGeek]

Please spare me. Women bitch about men all the time. Tons of places on the net for women to complain how "there are no good men out there".

Let me ask you, would you be saying 'Loosen up' if it were a racist joke?

I wouldn't. People need to get over this racism/sexism/Blah-ism junk. If someone makes a joke about a white dude, I don't get all flustered over it.

One thing I am wondering is why is this even news? I am not being sexist. Why should there be the first male who spent the longest time in space and the first female? Why not just the human with the longest time in space? Oh, and what about sports? Aren't women equal? So why are there world records for men and world records for women? Why not just a world record for the fastest, strongest, etc.?

This type of stuff isn't just male/female. It is also for every non-white man that does something. The first man in space, the first black man in space, the first women in space, the first black women in space, the first Asian in space, etc, etc. I personally don't care what the race/sex is. How about as a society we just acknowledge the first person to accomplish something regardless of sex/race?

Re:Parent Funny! Mod Up and Loosen up! :)

[powerpants]

I agree with you about the silliness of having a first-woman-in-space accolade, but sports are a different matter. Men and women have very different physiology after puberty and to pretend otherwise is fatuous. Granted, there are physiological characteristics that keep, say, (ethnic) Jews out of the NBA, but that's a very specific instance where height is at a premium. There are plenty of Jewish footballers who can compete at a world-class level.

Ending the gender-based segregation of sports would eliminate women's sports, and add little to the overall competition. They simply wouldn't be able to compete. With all due respect to Billy Jean King, Bobby Riggs was 55 when she beat him. She certainly wouldn't have fared as well against Jimmy Connors or Bjorn Borg?

That being said, I should reiterate my agreement that gender-based or race-based accolades are usually quite asinine. I saw a poster a while back announcing a lecture by Anousheh Ansari, the "first female space tourist."

Re:I prefer to imagine that they 'improvise'.

[r00t]

All sorts of stuff up there on the station...surely some of it can find an additional purpose...

You mean like the Russian dude?