Women in space

For other uses, see Women in space (disambiguation).

Women in space is the presence of women in outer space. Women have flown and worked in outer space from the beginning of human spaceflight. Overall women have been significantly less often chosen to go to space than men, and in June 2020, constituted only 12% of all astronauts who had been to space. Yet, the proportion of women among space travelers has been increasing substantially over time.

By October 2021, most of the 70 women who have been to space have been United States citizens, with missions on the Space Shuttle and on the International Space Station. Other countries (USSR, Canada, Japan, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France, South Korea, Italy, Belarus) have flown one, two or three women in human spaceflight programs. Additionally one woman of dual Iranian-US citizenship has participated as a tourist on a US spaceflight.

The first woman to fly in space was Soviet Valentina Tereshkova, aboard the Vostok 6 space capsule on June 16–19, 1963. Tereshkova was a textile-factory assembly worker, rather than a pilot like the male cosmonauts flying at the time, chosen for propaganda value, her devotion to the Communist Party, and her years of experience in sport parachuting, which she used on landing after ejecting from her capsule.

Women face many of the same physical and psychological difficulties of spaceflight as men. Scientific studies generally show no particular adverse effect from short space missions. It has even been suggested by some that women might be better suited for longer space missions. Studies have continually indicated that the main obstacle for women to go to space remains gender discrimination.

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