Two Women Soon to Be on ISS Long-Term Crew for Only the Second Time in History

Samantha Cristoforetti, Italy’s first female astronaut, will blast off this weekend to join the ISS crew, including Russian cosmonaut Elana Serova, in orbit. That will make this only the second time in the space station’s 16 years of operation that two women have been on its six-member crew at the same time. And nobody’s even asked Cristoforetti any dumb questions about hair or makeup yet!

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case when Serova became the first female cosmonaut to go to the International Space Station. Hopefully, that means at least some people have finally learned their lesson about asking weird gender-biased questions. “Space is what I do for work, and that’s what I think about it: It’s my work,” Serova said in a NASA interview in September, and hopefully that’s where the media will keep its focus, too.

We were already pretty excited about Christoforetti when she revealed ISS Expedition 42’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy-themed poster to the world, and we couldn’t be happier that there will again be two women doing science aboard the ISS. Christoforetti blasts off from Kazakhstan this Sunday.

(via Phys.org, image via NASA)

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Dan Van Winkle

Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct Geekosystem (RIP), and then at The Mary Sue starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at Smash Bros.

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