Three Arriving On Discovery Later This Week

For the first time since women began flying in space 50 years ago, four will be in space at the same time aboard ISS when Space Shuttle Discovery docks at the outpost this week.

Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenberger, Naoko Yamakazi, and Stephanie Wilson are all aboard the shuttle which launched Monday morning for the space station. Tracy Caldwell Dyson reached the station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft Sunday.

The Times of London reports that the milestone has gone largely unnoticed by NASA.  “Maybe that’s a credit to the system, right, that I don’t think of it as male or female?” said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations. “I just think of it as a talented group of people going to do their job in space,” he said at a news conference.

The first woman in space was Russian Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova in 1963. The U.S. did not have a female astronaut until Sally Ride flew in 1983.

The arrival of the three women aboard Discovery marks a record for the number of women in space at the same time. 51 women have flown in space prior to Dyson's departure on the Soyuz last week.

FMI: www.nasa.gov