NASA cancels all-woman spacewalk because... (1 Viewer)

[Tom Servo]

not enough correctly-sized suits.
 

What should have been a giant leap for womankind has turned into a stumble after Nasa said on Monday night that they will only have access to one correctly sized spacesuit top by Friday when the walk was scheduled. One of the two women on the mission, Anne McClain, will now have to give up her place to a male colleague.

She thought a large-sized suit would be fine but after a spacewalk last week found that the medium-sized was a better fit and would be the most appropriate suit to wear to venture back outside the International Space Station.

“Anne trained in ‘M’ and ‘L’ and thought she could use a large but decided after [last] Friday’s spacewalk a medium fits better,” a Nasa spokeswoman, Stephanie Schierholz, announced on Monday.

 

[heckmanm]

So the spacewalk suits are different from the suits they wear for the launch to get to the station, I assume?

Need to put an other "M" suit on the shopping list, I guess.

 

[beer 30]

Comes to mind:

Harry Stamper: What's your contingency plan?
Truman: Contingency plan?
Harry: Your backup plan. You gotta have some kind of backup plan, right?
Truman: No, we don't have a back up plan, this is, uh…
Harry: And this is the best that you-that the government, the U.S. government could come up with? I mean, you're NASA for crying out loud, you put a man on the moon, you're geniuses! You're the guys that're thinking #### up! I'm sure you got a team of men sitting around somewhere right now just thinking #### up and somebody backing them up! You're telling me you don't have a backup plan, that these eight boy scouts right here [gestures to USAF pilots], that is the world's hope, that's what you're telling me?
Truman: Yeah.

 

[Galileo]

“Anne trained in ‘M’ and ‘L’ and thought she could use a large but decided after [last] Friday’s spacewalk a medium fits better,” 

So, the real problem here is that a woman changed her mind...  

 

[rockaction]

Comes to mind:

Harry Stamper: What's your contingency plan?
Truman: Contingency plan?
Harry: Your backup plan. You gotta have some kind of backup plan, right?
Truman: No, we don't have a back up plan, this is, uh…
Harry: And this is the best that you-that the government, the U.S. government could come up with? I mean, you're NASA for crying out loud, you put a man on the moon, you're geniuses! You're the guys that're thinking #### up! I'm sure you got a team of men sitting around somewhere right now just thinking #### up and somebody backing them up! You're telling me you don't have a backup plan, that these eight boy scouts right here [gestures to USAF pilots], that is the world's hope, that's what you're telling me?
Truman: Yeah.

I thought this was Red Dawn, TBH 

Always a good day to yell "Avenge Me!"

 

[E Street Brat]

So a women has nothing to wear.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

Seems like this is kind of being blown out of proportion.  Some of the facts.

• Space suits are left over from the shuttle era.  There were 18 originally but only 11 still working
  
• They had an extra medium that was decomissioned that they could have gotten up to flight standards, but she had said she would fit in the large and did all of her training in the large.  It wasn't until she got up there that she decided it didn't fit
  
• The person in charge of the mission (one year in planning) was a woman, fwiw
  
• This is actually a common problem.  NASA is working on new suits, but they are still a ways out: https://www.thedailybeast.com/nasas-space-suit-drama-could-delay-our-trip-to-the-moon?ref=scroll
  

 

[FreeBaGeL]

Comes to mind:

Harry Stamper: What's your contingency plan?
Truman: Contingency plan?
Harry: Your backup plan. You gotta have some kind of backup plan, right?
Truman: No, we don't have a back up plan, this is, uh…
Harry: And this is the best that you-that the government, the U.S. government could come up with? I mean, you're NASA for crying out loud, you put a man on the moon, you're geniuses! You're the guys that're thinking #### up! I'm sure you got a team of men sitting around somewhere right now just thinking #### up and somebody backing them up! You're telling me you don't have a backup plan, that these eight boy scouts right here [gestures to USAF pilots], that is the world's hope, that's what you're telling me?
Truman: Yeah.

The contingency plan is to use a different astronaut that fits in the suit that is there.  That's always been the contingency plan and that's what they did.

There isn't exactly a bunch of extra space for extra suits up there.  https://twitter.com/Astro_Christina/status/1110189876639657984/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1110189876639657984&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2019%2F03%2F25%2Fscience%2Ffemale-spacewalk-canceled.html&fbclid=IwAR2a11eVcg_2UQVs_D25OaXPtHtzML5QEgnYBjDLFpgNJWRFQnggCJVsBNA

They would have had to fit 4 suits in there instead of 2 to break up the groups as 2 men/2 women (2 larges and 2 mediums) instead of having just 2 suits (1 medium/1 large) by splitting up the groups the way they ended up doing it.

 

[E Street Brat]

Couldn't be caught wearing the same outfit as the other women.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

Also the mission wasn't canceled nor did the woman miss out on her space walk.  This wasn't planned as some kind of all-woman thing.  There were two groups of two and it just happened to work out that it was a group of 2 men and a group of 2 women.  When they got up there and it turned out the 2 women needed the same suit they just swapped it to two groups of 1 man/1 woman.

 

[Arizona Ron]

Does this space suit make me look fat?

 

[Tom Servo]

Also the mission wasn't canceled nor did the woman miss out on her space walk.  This wasn't planned as some kind of all-woman thing.  There were two groups of two and it just happened to work out that it was a group of 2 men and a group of 2 women.  When they got up there and it turned out the 2 women needed the same suit they just swapped it to two groups of 1 man/1 woman.

Are you trying to be a killjoy in this thread, Chico?

 

[Van Dyman]

Also the mission wasn't canceled nor did the woman miss out on her space walk.  This wasn't planned as some kind of all-woman thing.  There were two groups of two and it just happened to work out that it was a group of 2 men and a group of 2 women.  When they got up there and it turned out the 2 women needed the same suit they just swapped it to two groups of 1 man/1 woman.

"They just swapped it" might or might not be a big deal. Kinda depends on  whether the astronauts all had exactly the same training (fully trained on both spacewalk tasks) or some had training focused on the task they THOUGHT they would be performing. 

 

[joffer]

Couldn't be caught wearing the same outfit as the other women.

everyone would stare

 

[joffer]

Also the mission wasn't canceled nor did the woman miss out on her space walk.  This wasn't planned as some kind of all-woman thing.  There were two groups of two and it just happened to work out that it was a group of 2 men and a group of 2 women.  When they got up there and it turned out the 2 women needed the same suit they just swapped it to two groups of 1 man/1 woman.

"Lisa, stop spoiling daddy's fun"

 

[belljr]

It's pre Memorial Day.....can't wear white

 

[grateful zed]

topless is the answer.

weightless titt ies.  

 

[Phil Elliott]

How embarassing for the one who has to wear the L. All they had to do was re-label it as an M.