No Astronaut Gender Parity

Marianne Dyson July/August 2017

When NASA announced a new group of twelve astronauts in June, I was disappointed to hear that only five of the twelve candidates selected are female, and only one is black. I had expected NASA to select an equal number of men and women like they did in 2013. I even dared to hope they might boldly select MORE women than men and several blacks to compensate for there being twice as many men as women and only one black woman in the current astronaut corps.

L to R, back row: Jonny Kim (Doctor, CA), Warren Hoburg (MIT Professor, PA), Frank Rubio (Major US Army, FL), Kayla Barron (Lt. Navy, WA), Bob Hines (NASA Pilot, PA), Matthew Dominick (Lt. Cdr, Navy, CO), Raja Chari (Lt. Col. USAF, IA). Front row: Robb Kulin (SpaceX Engineer, AK), Zena Cardman (Research Fellow, VA), Jasmin Moghbeli (Major, Marines, NY), Jessica Watkins (Research Fellow, CO), Loral O