Should the first Mars mission be all women? No. Not even if the people who are most qualified are all women should an all-woman team be sent to Mars. Now, you're probably thinking I'm a sexist, but please read a little bit further. We've never sent people on such a long mission before, and one of the sets of scientific data we will want to record is the effects of long-duration spaceflight on human beings (and maybe other species of animals or plants). Sending one particular gender halves the amount of data you can collect. So at least one man or woman should be included in the crew sent to Mars regardless of who is most qualified to go.
***** LEO is still decently protected by Earth's magnetosphere. Also, we have no space station capable of producing 0.4 gravity. Putting both a man and a woman on Mars is the only way to tell how men and women will fare in such an environment. William Brown Why wouldn't you want the data as soon as you possibly can so you can better plan for future spaceflights?
Lutranereis It also seems to me that considering the different physiological weaknesses, having at least one man might be pragmatic. Let's say if all the women do faint due to the gravity change upon landing on Mars; it would be really helpful to have someone resistant to that, even if his eyesight could potentially suffer later down the line.
LexusCalcearius This. Diversity and adaptability trumps specialization. Especially in a situation like this, where you're entering a new environment and not everything is completely accounted for.
Mustavo Gaia for a porn movie anyway.. while they're at it they should save on private quarters and clothe so they're forced to sleep naked in one giant bed filled with dildos..... there's a perfectly good reason for the dildos. I just don't want to insult your inteligents explaining it. If they install a camera they could even make money while expanding man-kind's horizons.... People! We have a business! Now let's go make a Kickstarter..
I was having my break in work, sipping my coffee. Then I read your comment, splurted coffee on to my paper work, laughed so hard I thought I was going to pass out. A coworker came over to see what the disturbance was.....she read the comment, and said with aplomb "That is the reason you don't drink at your desk." At that moment I wished she was on Mars.
Female Astronauts - "Houston we have a problem" Houston - "copy, what is it?" Female Astronauts - "nothing" Huston - "please tell us what is wrong" Female Astronauts - "i don't want to talk about it..."
Lazyrobot101 Male astronaut 1: we've missed our intended landing zone, our current position is unknown. Male astronaut 2: should we call earth and ask for directions? Male astronaut 1: no, we'll figure it out.
Lazyrobot101 smh more sexist crap in the comment section. You guys are unbelievable, how can I have a common interest in this channel with guys like these...
Mnakekeli Ngcamphalala A sense of humour can be based on things people find morally wrong, such as that joke. It is actually part of the humour. Your offense is also part of the humour, of course to them. This is also how nazi jokes work.
Kieron George If the first mission is all girls, sure it might be cheaper. But what if there is some crazy thing that makes it impossible for men to be there. The 2nd mission would presumably cost around as much as the first. Thereby costing twice as much to find out that men(or women) can't go. Or that one handles it better than the other. When for that 1% or so difference, you could just find out the first time. (side note)Don't you love when you click off the notification window to change a video or something, just to have your entire typed out comment vanish...
Frosty. and, it technically won't be cheaper, unless what could be saved by halving the shielding, rather than halving the food, is likely going to be more effective.
Davis Jugroop WTF. Idiots like you are ruled out at once. What will be your next suggestion. Crackheads’ apparently doesn’t eat much. Etc at best a very poor joke or just plain disrespect towards a minor group of people.
The fact is dwarfs aren't scientifially proven to exist like its cousins elves, trolls, goblins, etc. What I knew is that a minority people group called ''little people'' which should be respected and loved do exist. They're different.
***** Isn't Tumblr one of those NSA surveillance tools where they internally link your profile to your real name and more important, your postal address?
Such a fascinating question. First off, as a 6'6" male, I know I wouldn't be going for sure, because I'm too large and demand too much space and too many calories to be economically feasible. But if my size eliminates me for this reason, then shouldn't we eliminate *all other men* as well? We could send men later, but for this pioneering voyage to save costs and ensure safety, my first instinct was "yeah, of course we should send just women!" But then the devil's advocate in my head piped up and asked, "If the stats were reversed, could you justify sending only men?" And that flummoxed me. In that case I would be completely against the idea, as it would stop women from being a part of this massively important contribution to human history, and seemed at least vaguely bigoted. So why not so with the reverse? It's so interesting and difficult to try to make these decisions impartially and scientifically from our culturally and personally biased perspectives. Right now my gut says it should be a fairly even split for the mission, but I'm not sure if that's motivated by science or emotion, (or if both, to what degree). And if your answer is "Who cares about sex? Just send the best astronauts." your argument seems fairly invalid. NASA can train dozens of equally qualified astronauts, but will always still discriminate on physiology to reduce dangers or costs. Hence poor old 6'6" earthbound me. So the real question is, how far should this discrimination extend? What if it turned out people with African heritage are the worst for absorbing unhealthy radiation? Or that Irish people are so much abnormally better at maintaining bone density in 0G that they're the only reasonable choice for astronauts? Makes for some fun thought experiments.
SophisticatedBanjo The idea of sending an all women crew for the first mission appeals to me from a cultural perspective. Like an apology for sending only men on the first round of Moon missions.
SophisticatedBanjo First off, you need to not take this video at face value. Women do consume less calories, but mostly because they are smaller. The difference in food for men and women of the same size is ~5%, dropping the food cost difference to more like 0.01% of the total cost. There should be a "best size" with should be true for both men and women, or there may be a physical strength requirement and we want the smallest people with that strength, which could mean taking men works better. Ei - a 130lb woman meets the strength requirement and a 110lb man meets the strength requirement, and a 110lb man has a lower food requirement then a 130lb woman. And you don't need to reverse the stats to make the "all men argument". The radiation alone makes that argument. Though even more important, no women has ever been in space that long so there are totally unknown risks. And unknown risks are the worst kind. There is no way I would want a women sent until a few women has spend the same amount of space as the mission will take. Though, honestly, any sane, non sexist person would says, as both men and women have clear advantages and disadvantage, we should have both to mitigate over all risks to the mission. Though we need to increase women's time in space so we have some idea of the effects on women in that long in space.
cOmAtOrAn that's idiotic. So we should also send only African Americans as well since the first moon landing was all white? And since we're basing this all on civil rights issues instead of science let's let Russia make it there this time. You know, since we won the moon race. Gotta give everyone a chance right? How about we keep this rooted in science and leave the social studies on earth.
I like the ideas you bring up. Just how much discrimination needs to go into deciding who gets to go? Race, gender, genetics? Even sexual orientation and religion? But while I think a lot if this is interesting, overall I think that a mixed crew (in whatever respect) is more ideal. I mean whatever the drawbacks there are tradeoffs with any discriminating factor. And they didn't tally focus much on the advantages of sending males, other than the slightly reduced radiation risk. But say a male pilot gets his vision impaired, well his female co-astronaut could take over. What if a female astronaut gets radiation poisoning? Then her male co-astronauts could assume her duties. As far as males consuming more calories, that's a fact. But what if we sent smaller males on longer term missions? Would that prove just as effective? As with anything, I think this warrants more studies into deep space travel. And there are still a lot of hurdles to Overcome for HUMAN liveability in space in general. There's a ton of radiation, there's bone loss, and there's raised blood pressure, which is all a factor regardless of gender.
Anduril I said the idea is appealing, not that such a appeal should be the only or even deciding factor in any expedition. Only that we shouldn't find ourselves justifying sending men based on the fact that they comprise half the population.
An all-woman crew will be unending months of this -- with no referee to stop the match. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dlMQ9gpNPlY.html "What's wrong out there?" (crash, bang) "Nothing" (Smack) "We're fine"
Shouldn't we send only men to Mars and only women to Venus? :P Just kidding, the most qualified astronauts should go and nowadays that includes both men and women :)
Quasar Have you seen the episode on why going to Venus might be a better choice than Mars? (from the PBS Space Time channel) I think his arguments are pretty good and I agree on most of them although I'd like to see humans get to Mars first :)
Davide Conte No I haven't. I usually just stumble my way from minutephysics to vsauce. But for venus. Inside its atmosphere its one of (if not the) hottest planet in the solar system. Sending people there would be like sending them to their doom
Davide Conte its not qualified NASA know mars mission is 101% suicide they manage to lure the femenist idea to make fun of a dying/hysterical bitch in space. (looks fun anyway)
Quasar Obviously they aren't going to send anyone to the surface of Venus. The idea is to create a floating colony in the upper atmosphere where air pressures are similar to that of Earth's and the temperature doesn't cook you.
I am cool with whatever they decide to do, as long as it's not in any way done because of some gender ideology. They should pick the best people for the job, for the highest chance of success.
Alexander Delarge Ok, I never said they should only pick men. Where did you get the idea that I supported that idea? Edit: Oh I see what you did there :P
+armoredp Agreed. Choices should be made for the good of the mission and only for the good of the mission. All women? That's fine. All men. Also fine. As long as there's a good reason, whatever group makeup is fine.
actually studies have shown that women on average are better communicators than men so please stop perpetuating these kind of stupid and hurtful stereotypes, you're holding humanity back (also you stole this joke from twitter but who cares)
thylatrash It's a joke, and seeing as this video is saying men shouldn't go to mars at all in the first ship is pretty shit, so please, go be triggered elsewhere.
screw that shit, cats should be sent! we weigh less and we have the insasiable urge to CONQUER LAND like mars! I... I MEAN WE CATS SHALL RULE THE UNIVERSE!
i am sceptical about the half food requirement for women... considering you did so much math for the fuel savings, does it sound completely true that women require half the food for the same activity? i can understand a person weighing less requiring less food, but women in general requiring half the food of men in general? that sounds like overgeneralising. what about men who are more lithe in build? also, what about tradeoffs in terms of strength? i am pretty sure an astronaut-fit person who requires more food can lift more weight, and probably have more stamina/endurance. yes, Mars has low gravity, so physical capability is probably less important; but it should still figure into calculations, right?
Gregory Samuel Teo There are exceptions for everything, but you'd be hard-pressed to find female candidates who have a higher basal metabolic rate than male candidates, especially if you're limiting your selection pool to physically fit individuals. As for tradeoffs in strength, the tradeoffs would be minimal. Women might not be able to physically carry as much as men do, but in addition to the lower gravity, any interplanetary colonization mission will rely heavily on automation and robotic assistance. That means things like strength augmentation exoskeletons, robotic pack mules, rovers, etc. Besides, you wouldn't want the astronauts to perform *any* tasks that would require them to push their bodies to the limits because of the risk of injury.
Antenox i understand that women generally have a lower metabolism rate; i just take issue with that number being so specifically HALF that of men. it should at the very least be a range, say 40-60% or something. strength may not be the top priority, i agree. but what about endurance? and resistance to injury? or resistance to sickness in general? are men just cursed with terrible biology, to the tune of doubly worse?
Gregory Samuel Teo Two major factors go into metabolism: base metabolic rate (which is lower for women in general) and body weight. If we limit ourselves to just physically fit individuals, then women will weigh about 70% what men weigh. Factor that into their lower base metabolic rate, and I can see how daily caloric intake would be half that of men. Strength and endurance are not factors because, as mentioned, you don't want to push astronauts to their physical limits. It's good for them to have higher limits, of course, but other factors outweigh absolute physical capability. I think it's enough to expect 95th percentile performance, which women should be capable of. With resistance to injury and sickness, I don't think there's a statistically significant difference in terms of injury rates or sickness. Male biology isn't "worse" than female biology. It's just meant for a different purpose. We evolved on a planet with plentiful resources, and as a species we have the luxury of cramming as much food down our gullets as we want, let alone as much as we need. A trip to Mars, however, needs to take into account biological efficiency, and women are more efficient, biologically, than men, probably in part because they have to spend a not-insignificant part of their lives sharing their body's resources with another living being.
Gregory Samuel Teo men have more muscle mass, which requires more calories, even if a man has equal height and equal weight to a women he would need more calories since more of his mass is muscles, fats don't require as much food to keep vital.
Time Traveler that is obvious. the problem i have is with the RATIO. men don't have TWICE the muscle mass or muscle-to-fat ratio compared to women. but somehow women only require half the food? i'm still sceptical about metabolism as well. half is SO MUCH more efficient that it seems way off.
Fewer women in have been in space and, as you said, they are spending less time in space per person. This combined with the fact that there is only a correlation between men and the vision problem, and not a known cause, means the vision argument is very poor. In the food argument, I noticed that the relative size of the men and women was not mentioned in the comparison. Men are generally larger, which may have been the cause for the difference, and that can be easily controlled for, just find smaller astronauts.
Men on average have more muscle mass than women due to testosterone (even when adjusted for height) and muscle takes more calories to maintain than fat does.
+Kat Berlow the flip side of that is that because of a higher muscle to fat ratio, the man would be able to get more work done with the same amount of calories than a woman because none of them would be wasted on fat.
TechWizPC Couldn't that be lowered? I assume the acceptable height bracket is related to gear compatibility and the like (correct me if I'm wrong though). Certainly Duane Ross's defense of the height restrictions seem to be all about Astronauts physically fitting into their environments. I'm obviously suggesting that new space equipment be made Dwarf sized.
The food argument isn't compelling at all. Yes, the men in the Mauna Loa Mars Environment study consumed more calories for a "comparable" amount of activity, but mean on average have much more muscle mass and produce more body heat. Due to conservation of energy, of course they would consume more energy in the form of calories. What they should've done was get men and women of similar height and weight because if the female body was somehow more efficient with energy than men, that's a pretty f**king huge breakthrough and completely unheard of.
+Erkan Alles Well what I'm saying is that all we need are some men with height and muscle mass that is similar to women and then they would use the same amount of food. So then there's no point of making it all women.
The point is to compare mission suitable male astronauts to mission suitable female astronauts. It doesn't matter if there are male civilians who might require fewer calories per day as compared to female astronauts. You might as well be arguing that bottle rockets require less fuel to take off than a rocket's propulsion system, and therefore we should duct tape a bunch of black-cats to the next Curiosity lander.
+Irval Firestar Yes, be careful. WE ARE ALL EQUAL, didn't you know? In fact, we all look the same and have the same DNA. It's just a optical illusion made by the government to seem like we all look different.
...I'll just give this a chance. Perhaps it's not feminist propaganda. I'm just going to say the following: The missions should be based on what's needed and who's most qualified, regardless of sex or gender or anything else. And, if people get booted from the program, because they don't meet the requirements, that does not mean we should lower the requirements. EDIT: Good news everybody. The argument was more than "because patriarchy". Based entirely on the arguments presented here, yeah, it would be fine. However, would the decreased cost of the food (roughly half, I believe he said) make up for the doubling of the radiation shielding? As far as I know, the latter is more expensive than the former (though both would seem rather insignificant on the scale that the problem is on). BUT! And this is crucial. Not every woman is a good talker, and not every man is a bad one (hell, I'd even say that these stereotypes are just that, but that's just my observations here in less stressed environments than near total isolation). The eye sight thing could be pretty big...depending on how much of a difference in eye sight was (which was not specified), and whether we develop some advanced way to help people see better (like...glasses? or video?). OK, sorry for the sarcasm.
SangoProductions21 OK! So, It's dead week here, so I have a lot of time on my hands...and I was a bit suspicious as to *WHY* it is that females would be immune to pressure changes in their head. So, I did a bit of investigating on my own on the issue of the eye sight in space...although all of them said that some percentage of the astronauts did not have sight problems (and even one that said his sight was inversed from far-sighted to near-sighted....or the other way around), only 1 of them mentioned that no women were affected. Wouldn't that be something like....kinda important? Of course, I didn't find the exact break down of those with eye problems by gender, though. I didn't really find an answer to the why yet. Perhaps we'll figure it out soon. For the purposes of this analysis, sex and gender will be interchangeable. - www.geteyesmart.org/eyesmart/eye-health-news/space-flight-and-vision.cfm Here it talks of multiple studies. The first, with 7 astronauts (gender unspecified), returned with all of them having structural or visual anomalies. Hardly enough to consider a study. The next was a study of 300 men and women (still low but astronomers are in low supply). "about 23 percent of short-flight and 49 percent of long-flight astronauts said they had experienced problems with both near and distance vision during their missions. Again, for some people vision problems persisted for years afterward." From this video, we can assume that NASA only recently became 50% of both sexes, and this study happened years ago, so a number less than 100% of all men were affected by this, and an unknown number of women were. It was not deemed important to post that no women were affected in this case, if that even was the case. "Today astronauts use glasses that improve visual sharpness, also called visual acuity." ...perhaps my sarcasm was warranted. - www.space.com/14876-astronaut-spaceflight-vision-problems.html This time 27 astronauts (again, gender unspecified) on the ISS, "33%" + "22%" + "15%" + "11%" (with potential overlap in statistics, ie. someone suffering from 2 or more abnormalities) = 81% suffered from some type of physical abnormalities of the eyes. No mention of women being immune...or of whether said abnormalities lead to vision loss or change. - lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/10/astronaut-feels-spaces-toll-on-his-body/ is the one talking of how someone who was near-sighted became far-sighted by his trip into space. This is also the *only* one that I've found that has mentioned females not being affected (though failed to mention how many in total there were. But, it did also offer other statistics, like 10 of the men who went into space were *over 45*. Not much more information, not even about the total number of people that went. - www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/vision_changes.html from nasa.gov. that's a good place to start... (this one was actually a cool little read) "Approximately 20 percent of astronauts living on the International Space Station have reported post-flight vision changes." OK, well, that's a reported number, so it's likely lower than the actual number, but that's really low. 20 total astronauts, 5 reported cases. Again, no mention of women being immune.
Continuing with the studies (also investigated the video's sources. not great, except for the first one.): abcnews.go.com/Technology/space-station-astronauts-eyesight-affected-long-stays-orbit/story?id=15904338 I really want to say "don't go to this site without adblock...and even then, it's best to avoid it, because it still loads SOOO much, and very slowly, and has an automatic video playing" but I won't. MRIs on 27 American astronauts (gender undisclosed), with 60% of them coming back with intracranial hypertension, though not necessarily seeing loss. " 40 percent seemed immune -- and Kramer said there was no guessing what would protect some but not others. "What makes them so special?" he said. "We don't know." " Well, at least they are honest about it. But even ABC didn't say that specifically women were immune. I'd quite expect that if something like that were to happen, they'd have mentioned it. www.zmescience.com/medicine/astronaut-eyesight-damage-weightlessness-3214143/ Hosts several studies First: In a survey of yet again, 300 long-term astronauts, 50% of them said they had seeing problems. 25% of short-term astronauts as well, but that's irrelevant for our discussion. Again, it mentions that the majority of them were over the age of 40. Second: a more in depth examination, 7 astronauts of age 50 or older. 5 of them suffered from sight problems during the mission, and all 7 suffered from some kind of sight problem after their mission. Again. No mention of women being specifically immune. - WOOOT I found out that this place hosts their sources in the description! I'm so used to people not doing that, I didn't consider it, so I'll look at it here. online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/jwh.2014.4914 I found that this site claims to be peer-review (though I don't know if that's feminist peer-review, or real, but I'll assume the best). Makes an argument that in all clinically significant studies have only found visual impairment in men, not women. So, for as far as we know, from this, only men get it...unless there are cases where women do get, but isn't what they call "clinically significant". What were the circumstances that make such and such study "clinically significant"? www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/science/bodies-not-made-for-space.html?_r=0 says that says that the vision damage is significantly more likely in men than woman, which must indicate that there are 'some' women who are affected. And, depending on your sources, the average age of an astronaut is from 30 to 50 years, but in virtually all instances, the average age of women is about 9/10 to 10/11 that of a man. If my idea that age had something to do with it (as I stated in the conclusion below) is correct, this could be a large reason for this difference in how many are affected. Of course, I could find 0 sources for ages of men and women when they are actually in space. - www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/poll/2010/mar/09/china-space ....OK. the last citation worked, and was very reasonable with nothing inside it busting a hole in it's arguments (such that I have found)... but this is just kinda ridiculous. First off, it's a poll. Second, it cites a Chinese move to send mothers for astronaut training. I kinda wouldn't rely on Chinese media and government stunts. I mean, unless you believe their giant space laser will actually get rid of their pollution problem...and that making unlicensed dying illegal is a smart move. - www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/space_20/2014/10/manned_mission_to_mars_female_astronauts_are_cheaper_to_launch_into_outer.html "the most metabolically active male burned an average of 3,450 calories per day, while the least metabolically active female expended 1,475".....ok. Let's compare the most active and least active of the 2 groups, and see how they compare. "Oh, the most active uses more calories than the least active" *REALLY!?!?!?* U FOKING WOT M8T? OK, let's ignore that flub up. " It was rare for a woman on crew to burn 2,000 calories in a day and common for male crew members to exceed 3,000." But, this comes directly after that last sentence I quoted. I am not sure I can trust it. But, it is a fact that 1.5 times as many calories are recommended for men than women, even adjusting for age recommendations, according to www.webmd.com/diet/estimated-calorie-requirement (although, it is WebMD, and feminists claim this number is actually to "produce a society of women without curves" but those are feminists, and you shouldn't listen to them). Not to mention its misuse of English grammar really, really disturbs me. I don't think it's a credible source. - hi-seas.org/ ....how is...how is this even a source? It doesn't mention anything you mention. - www.nasa.gov/pdf/143163main_Space.Food.and.Nutrition.pdf ...again. This seems quite unrelated to the video. This isn't an English class. You don't need filler sources. We trust you well enough. - www.uh.edu/sicsa/library/media/publications/AIAA_2013 Ah, there we go. I won't bother doing the calculations myself, as you mentioned that they were insignificant, regardless, but at least you do have a source for the calculations.
So, in conclusion, after roughly 2.5 hours (make that 3.5, including the references in the video) of searching, and only finding ONE case where they mentioned that women were immune (and without numbers on how many women were even there), and yet, finding 2 cases where they mentioned that particularly old astronauts are at the highest risk, I would have to say that age likely has more to do with sight loss than what is or isn't between your legs. Also, there are people who are "immune" to this effect. Thus, regardless of gender, they should go, if we were to consider sight the absolute most important thing.
SangoProductions21 Good work, but really you had to know it was just yet another wonderful display of feminists claiming they want equality but then demanding more than 50%, because when it comes down to it equality is never enough. You know why? Because it's all about how they "feel". They don't "feel" like they are equal, therefore 50% can't be equal even though it literally is. They will absolutely always find some reason to complain, I don't think there is any pleasing them. You can find a large number of articles talking about how women earn more than men now in certain demographics and professions, but this gets represented as a success for equality! And not only that, but that this is just a good start and we need to go further, presumably so women are outperforming men in all areas. That's how they see "equality", as women being ahead.
I think there will be plenty enough of qualified candidates for the mission. The question is, IF there are advantages in an all-female crew over a mixed or all-male crew, should the selected crew then be all-female (or, for example, should the crew be mixed gender for 'optics', despite increased costs or whatever).
If you send only women to mars, they will work together at first, play nice, but eventually someone will mention Stacy's split ends and all hell will break lose and they'll all kill each other.
Everything will be hell on earth (or on Mars lol) because Stacy will be like ooh girl hold mah hair back 💆 then Jennete will be like b*tch Ina cut your hair off💇 then they'll be freinds again👭 and paint each other's nails💅
+Sofiane Ford That may be true in general, but the women who would be selected to go would be exceptional (due to very rigorous selection processes) so that their adaptability would likely be more than the general male population of earth to begin with.
Queen of Thorns No, women aren't funny and they made all women cast mainly for feminazi reasons. Men wouldn't even be that stupid to sign into this clasic movie remake bullshit anyways...
Not good, but the internet blows it way out of proportion. Source: Compare it to 95% of Adam Sandler's drivel. The new Ghostbusters was a relative masterpiece.
Women don't get paid less, that's a myth born of poor research methodology. It just asked 58 men and women what they got paid then drew a sweeping conclusion on that alone, which was pretty fucking stupid. They didn't even consider time worked, or jobs worked, nothing. Just 'how much do you get paid and do you have a penis or a vagina' (which alone would probably trigger some fucking loons).
Not so fast, buddy. Astronaut selection for any mission should be based off of _qualification_ rather than mere gender; there are also smaller men who don't consume as much food, and NASA would also be missing out on the many skills of the other 50% of the candidates. Not only this, but vision can be improved, either with glasses (the simpler option) or laser eye surgery (the more complicated option), so no, NASA should not deny male applicants to a Mars mission.
doesn't it make more sense to have a mixed team? If men are more resistant to radiation it would make sense to send them to do a particular job when the threat of radiation is higher and if women are better at handling inertia maybe they should be in control of the ship during launch (in case a man passes out), if different genders have different advantages and disadvantages a mixed team would mean that they could take advantage of both genders. I seems stupid to limit capabilities especially for a company like NASA.
I would also like to add that individuals have different traits that are not relevant to gender and because of this Astronauts should just be recruited because of ability not sex. It's ridiculous to assume skill, problem solving or teamwork skills based on gender.
A mixed team is indeed the best option... also considering that there are other things than food that have not been mentioned in anyone's' calculations as far as mission mass goes (if this statements stumps you, then you probably do not know any girls).
1. *Some* men have experienced this problem with eyesight, as female participation in long term spaceflight increases we will likely find it happening in some women too... it seems unlikely that there is significant differences in the eye structure between the sexes. 2. Radiation shielding is not trivial, whatever shielding gets invented it will inevitably require twice as much of it to protect women as adequately as men... this means twice the weight/energy requirements. Hand waving this away seems rather silly. 3. The Guardian? Really? Lets ignore actual research in favor of what a newspaper reported second hand? 4. Calorie requirements may be different between the sexes, and in fact this may be your first genuine point in terms of a quality that favors a female astronauts. But one wonders what qualifies as "the same exercise", lighter body frames are bound to require less energy to move if the exorcise is simply moving... but did all the subjects perform identical tasks with identical weight bearing exorcises? Did these tests include the extra weight of equipment it will likely require to survive on another planet? You also aren't being conservative in your savings estimates, you inflated the savings by 50% when you went from a crew of 4 to a crew of 6, why not say a crew of 20 and show us savings that are truly astronomical? I totally think women should go, women should be included in all space exploration in a manner commiserate with the rate they apply and qualify in comparison to men... and if there turns out to be solid data that makes it clear they are roundly more suited for certain missions, then perhaps the crews should be weighted for that. However, in this case I think you set out with the idea you'd like to show women are a better idea and sought out "evidence" to support it, putting far more emphasis on the positives and hand waving some of the negatives... this is not the realism and forethought it will require for successful space exploration.
Great topic to discuss! From what I learned from my human spaceflight professors, research indicates that mixed crews do best in both space and space analogues. One thing that could be updated in this video is that when the host speaks about HI-SEAS in Hawaii, a photo of the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah is shown in the background. These are two unrelated Martian analogue sites.
The mission crew in the prologue of Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" consisted of 3 to 5 (I forgot the exact number) married couples (no gays; not in 1960!) matched up scientifically to be brilliant, psychologically compatible (within and between couples), and have the ideal combination of science skills. After landing, a baby boy conceived en route was born, followed by a Hamlet final scene mutual murder party. The native Martian life forms raised the boy and when a rescue mission found him 21 years later, the story really began. But the point is, all the high tech matchmaking science can do cannot GUARANTEE there will be no breakdowns.
Sure, because it's way cheaper to launch an optometrist, fully functioning phoropter (The thing that determines your prescription), and the means to craft prescription eye-ware into space. Astronauts need the ability to read near and far range, so readers won't work, you're a huge liability if you have to get up and get within 3 feet of any panel, warning light, readout, or instrument you need to identify in order to recognize what it's saying. The longest anyone has ever been in space was 438 days, and they had significant eyesight deterioration. You can't 'predict' how someones eyesight will deteriorate so we can't send them with pre-made prescriptions (Unless your plan is to load them up with a thousand or so lenses of varying prescription that they can hot swap out, and would be imperfect for each person anyways). Comparing to that 438 days, a mission to mars is MORE than 900 days by current estimates, that means less than halfway through the mission all the men would probably be significantly visually impaired. The fact that every commenter that jumped on your bandwagon lacked the intellectual foresight to think through this problem is concerning, and probably the reason none of you work for NASA.
+Daharen Chill out; jokes aren't job applications to nasa :P I was basically just inspired by the "Nasa spent millions of dollars developing a pen that works in zero g; Russia just uses pencils" joke. Pencil dust is also terrible in a spacecraft, I agree
Wait, wait, wait! You posited a hypothetical all-female mission to mars... and then you asked _RU-vid commenters_ to weigh in on the matter?!? Just how new are you to this whole "internet" thing? Oh well. Let's just chalk this up as a learning experience for you. You'll know better next time.
I hope they at least spelled guardian properly. Then again, no one who starts a sentence with 'lol' is going to have anything intelligent to contribute.
I don´t think this is even a question. If women are *objectively* better suited for the mission, there is no reason to include token men. This is science, not gender identity class. Sex is irrelevant, you take the best possible candidates, end of story. However, an all female crew doesn´t work together as well as a mixed crew, so I suppose when sending 6 people altogether, it would make sense to send 4 females and 2 males.
***** On 1: It doesn´t really matter WHY they consume less food - they consume less fod, that´s the important bit. on 2: I´d say vision is in fact more mission critical than resilience to radiation sickness. First of all, vision losss something that directly and acutely endangers mission success, while radiation sickness is something chronic and gradual. Secondly, we have figured out how radiation sickness works and are thus (in theory) able to prevent it - while we have no idea why men suffer the amount of vision impairment they do. on 3: I don´t really remember the vid 100%, but didn´t he mention that? I´m almost sure he did. And lastly, you mentioned sexism in your last bit - sexism is something that should be of no concern whatsoever. NASA should never include a token person of the less-suited sex just because they fear allegations of sexism. You send whatever crew works out best in your simulations.
+Jeremy J. "I´d say vision is in fact more mission critical than resilience to radiation sickness." How is a person who needs glasses worse off than one who is dead/extremely infirm? "Secondly, we have figured out how radiation sickness works and are thus (in theory) able to prevent it " How? "while we have no idea why men suffer the amount of vision impairment they do." We do. It's due to a rise in intracranial pressure. Conceivably treatable with drugs. This also reveals that there's no reason to expect women wouldn't be subject to the same problem if they stayed in space long enough.
Vacuum Diagrams Dude, it´s right there in the post you responded to: "vision loss is something that directly and acutely endangers mission success, while radiation sickness is something chronic and gradual." If someone gets radiation sickness, he´s gradually getting worse over the course of ~2 weeks. You can place him in an infirmary or at least relieve him of all critical tasks. With vision problems, one minute someone hits the wrong button, gives a wrong sensor readout or whatever, bam, all personnel dead. As you didn´t specify to what part of the next part you ask "How?", I´m going to assume you mean the treatment of radiation sickness. It´s nothing new, has been done for ages now: lmgtfy.com/?q=radiation+sickness+treatment
Sejal Yadav, no. There would be no protests at all. It's clear that saying the First Mars Mission should be all women is what a lot of people (particularly a certain group of guys) are willing to protest.
Or "should the first Mars mission be all whites?" on the basis of some physiological advantage that white people have for working and surviving in space... yeah, I can't see that idea taking off!
But what about the other 64 genders? We need a video and explanation of all of those. Don't be a bigot. You have 1 month to execute this video. Time starts now.
Astoundingly, your demand has not been met. This is outrageous. I demand this man be sent to bigot jail at once or else the entire justice system is also illegally bigoted.
I suspect NASA evaluates only natural / physical genders since they need to count actual measurable facts :p. But if they need to go all the way women mission they better send some lesbians preferably ^^...
I would personally opt for a mixed mission. Mainly to allow for a more diverse data set. But it really all depends on the science the space agency wants to do, and the candidates it can find.
Precisely why the world runs as a meritocracy. The best person gets the job. Irrespective of what they were born as. Unfortunately, PBS and other Marxist collectives, including academia and the media at large (and unfortunately many histrionic wing nuts on RU-vid) want equality of outcome not equality of opportunity, enforced equality whereby even if you're the worst of the bunch you get chosen because you aren't a straight white male basically.
I like how he so easily discounted perhaps the largest obstacle to manned interplanetary flight -radiation exposure. Short of scifi style shields or lightweight armoring -the only way to protect the crew is with physical mass (including water); quite a bit actually -several tons of dense metals and plastics. He placed a great value on saving just 2 tons of food but having an all male crew would reduce the minimum protective mass requirements by almost half -and this is weight that you would also have to bring back to Earth. Protective features against radiation will almost certainly be one of the top 3 most expensive expenditures (fuel).
The thing is, he rounded up as high as he can on all of his calculations for food required. For instance, men on average don't use twice the food as women (in fact only using 30% more typically), and he used the long version of the trip with 910 days and over 1 year on mars. While some missions show a planned 90 days on the surface shortening the trip from 910 days to more like 600 and regardless he rounded the 910 kg up to 1000 which is a HUGE difference of like the weight of an entire person. he also added 2 more people to the trip increasing the cost by 50%, he gives the launch price as somewhere between $500 million, and $5 billion using the difference between his estimate of 2000 Kg, and mine of 360 Kg the actual cost of bringing men instead of women is $63 million. But he also says that his estimate of hundreds of millions is if there was one tenth this launch cost presumably one tenth of the $500 million version which is only $50 million making the number he clearly made up at least 400% more than the ENTIRE MISSION not the 7% he says. and the real number $630,000 which on the scale of a mars mission is nothing.
Stop exposing your white male privilege. Stop using racist math and science to justify oppressing the oppressed. You should help NASA manufacture data to justify a diverse crew that excludes or underrepresents white men. If you want to help, think about how you can manufacture data to justify a hormone-injecting all-transgender crew. Now that would be helpful.
@@ak.5620 I am pretending to be a social justice warrior. It is satire. NASA executives and the military generals are now making DEI their top priority. Their true mission is being compromised by social engineering crap.
Since when are PBS about social justice? In this case, according to the established logic, they are sending the most capable by sending women. Or the most cost free at least, which is looking at it from a capitalist perspective. Hardly social justice like.
There are physcological studies that make men seem like the better sex for space flight too... For example, a bunch of men were put on one island, and a bunch of woman were put on another. The men managed to build a successful microcolony, with sustainable food, shelter and even comfort items. The woman spend most of their first few days sunbathing, arguing with each other over roles and eating their starting supplies, and when they ran out they hadn't built a shelter, hadn't even found another food source and had only achieved a tan and a hateful relationship between the other women. The controllers realized that the woman were as good as dead in a real survival situation, and so swapped around some of the people, putting one man on the womans island and one woman on the mens island. Things didn't get better. The woman on the mens island didn't do any work, and carried on sunbathing, eating the supplies the men had gotten for her. The man on the womans island was worked to death, and was the only one doing work. The woman even denied him food until he did the work. *But* I won't try and say that we should send all men, because of this. I think we should send 3 people. And also, I have a question, what is the consensus around handling periods? If the woman is healthy and young (perfect for an astronaut), her periods will be monthly. Couldn't that cause problems in a micro gravity enviroment?
VintageLJ That sounds like a synopsis of a stupid Survivor spin-off. In case you didn't just make that island story up, you know that's not a real thing that happened, right?
+100,000 Muslim subscribers but no videos! look for survivor men vas women. I think it was the danish version the one that had to mix the sexes because women didn't do shit.
My point exactly. When I said "a real thing that happened", I was referring to that being an actual sociological experiment. A reality TV show is not a "psychological study". It's about as far from useful data as you can get. As I said, it sounded like a "stupid Survivor spin-off" which is EXACTLY what it turned out to be.
The best crew composition would be all women, with just one man. Me. Because I dont really have any useful skills, and Im stupid, my main function would be to repopulate the human race if Earth is hit by an asteroid whilst we are away. The rest of the time I could just stay out of the way, floating around in my spiderman jimmy jammies and playing Xbox, whilst the women do all the serious space stuff. I already have terrible eyesight, so technically that would render me immune from the space-blindness problem. Because women eat less, there would be more of that dehydrated NASA ice-cream for me, which would be awesome. I ate tonnes of that stuff at Kennedy Space Centre and its delicious. I guess it also means that Ive got some experience of coping with the rigors of space flight. I think female astronauts would be more than resilient enough to survive the massive morale hit from me coming along, and I could take a guitar with me to sing songs and cheer them up. I dont play guitar, but Id have 4 years to learn right?
Are these statements only true of the average women or is it true of all women (who pass NASA's tests)? If it is just the average, then there might be men who meet the low calorie-consumption and reduced vision-impairment standard. It might make more sense to test for those specific benefits on an individual basis than to select in broad stroke based on sex. I'm guessing short people consume less calories as well so maybe first footprints on Mars should be as small as the parameters allow.
It will give new meaning to the phrase "Red Planet". When all their cycles sync-up and they kill each other. The most valuable items in the mission will be any phallic-shaped object.
Red planet means the postmodernist-neo-Marxist pseudo-scientists will use identity politics to "justify" the diverse composition of the Mars crew to ensure that white men will be significantly underrepresented.
+Adolf Hitler These are not your average females mate, these will be highly professional and intelligent females, not your average person who worries about dumb shit and are jealous, like all astronauts, haven't you heard of having The Right Stuff, what all astronauts have? Not trying to fight just trying to give you an idea of what type of women or people they'll send to Mars.
Sorry bro but you're wrong and you appear to have forgotten about Lisa Nowak??? "Capt. Nowak’s conduct fell well short of that expected of senior officers in our Navy and demonstrated a complete disregard for the well-being of a fellow service member,' Nowak had flown on the Space Shuttle Discovery in July 2006, working as a robotics arm operator during space walks. Seven months later, she got into her husband's blue BMW, drove nearly 1,000 miles from Houston to Orlando - allegedly using diapers along the way so she wouldn't have to stop - stalked Shipman throughout the airport and then attacked her in a darkened parking lot. The attack concerned the affections of fellow astronaut and U.S. Navy Cmdr. William Oefelein, who had broken up with Nowak after he met Shipman. Nowak was fired from NASA shortly after the attack, while the U.S. Navy ended Oefelein's ties to the space agency" Human behavior is what it is, there is no "right stuff", the only thing she did good was verify that those adult diapers worked when she drove non stop for 1000 miles. I wish you could add music to comments, I would have included Patsy Cline's "Crazy" :)
Good news everybody. The argument was more than "because patriarchy". Based entirely on the arguments presented here, yeah, it would be fine. However, would the decreased cost of the food (roughly half, I believe he said) make up for the doubling of the radiation shielding? As far as I know, the latter is more expensive than the former (though both would seem rather insignificant on the scale that the problem is on). BUT! And this is crucial. Not every woman is a good talker, and not every man is a bad one (hell, I'd even say that these stereotypes are just that, but that's just my observations here in less stressed environments than near total isolation). The eye sight thing could be pretty big...depending on how much of a difference in eye sight was (which was not specified), and whether we develop some advanced way to help people see better (like...glasses? or a video screen?). OK, sorry for the sarcasm.
OK! So, It's dead week here, so I have a lot of time on my hands...and I was a bit suspicious as to WHY it is that females would be immune to pressure changes in their head. So, I did a bit of investigating on my own on the issue of the eye sight in space...although all of them said that some percentage of the astronauts did not have sight problems (and even one that said his sight was inversed from far-sighted to near-sighted....or the other way around), only 1 of them mentioned that no women were affected. Wouldn't that be something like....kinda important? Of course, I didn't find the exact break down of those with eye problems by gender, though. I didn't really find an answer to the why yet. Perhaps we'll figure it out soon. For the purposes of this analysis, sex and gender will be interchangeable. - www.geteyesmart.org/eyesmart/eye-health-news/space-flight-and-vision.cfm Here it talks of multiple studies. The first, with 7 astronauts (gender unspecified), returned with all of them having structural or visual anomalies. Hardly enough to consider a study. The next was a study of 300 men and women (still low but astronomers are in low supply). "about 23 percent of short-flight and 49 percent of long-flight astronauts said they had experienced problems with both near and distance vision during their missions. Again, for some people vision problems persisted for years afterward." From this video, we can assume that NASA only recently became 50% of both sexes, and this study happened years ago, so a number less than 100% of all men were affected by this, and an unknown number of women were. It was not deemed important to post that no women were affected in this case, if that even was the case. "Today astronauts use glasses that improve visual sharpness, also called visual acuity." ...perhaps my sarcasm was warranted. - @14876 This time 27 astronauts (again, gender unspecified) on the ISS, "33%" + "22%" + "15%" + "11%" (with potential overlap in statistics, ie. someone suffering from 2 or more abnormalities) = 81% suffered from some type of physical abnormalities of the eyes. No mention of women being immune...or of whether said abnormalities lead to vision loss or change. - @2012 is the one talking of how someone who was near-sighted became far-sighted by his trip into space. This is also the only one that I've found that has mentioned females not being affected (though failed to mention how many in total there were. But, it did also offer other statistics, like 10 of the men who went into space were over 45. Not much more information, not even about the total number of people that went. - www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/vision_changes.html from nasa.gov. that's a good place to start... (this one was actually a cool little read) "Approximately 20 percent of astronauts living on the International Space Station have reported post-flight vision changes." OK, well, that's a reported number, so it's likely lower than the actual number, but that's really low. 20 total astronauts, 5 reported cases. Again, no mention of women being immune.
SangoProductions21 abcnews.go.com/Technology/space-station-astronauts-eyesight-affected-long-stays-orbit/story?id=15904338 I really want to say "don't go to this site without adblock...and even then, it's best to avoid it, because it still loads SOOO much, and very slowly, and has an automatic video playing" but I won't. MRIs on 27 American astronauts (gender undisclosed), with 60% of them coming back with intracranial hypertension, though not necessarily seeing loss. " 40 percent seemed immune -- and Kramer said there was no guessing what would protect some but not others. "What makes them so special?" he said. "We don't know." " Well, at least they are honest about it. But even ABC didn't say that specifically women were immune. I'd quite expect that if something like that were to happen, they'd have mentioned it. www.zmescience.com/medicine/astronaut-eyesight-damage-weightlessness-3214143/ Hosts several studies First: In a survey of yet again, 300 long-term astronauts, 50% of them said they had seeing problems. 25% of short-term astronauts as well, but that's irrelevant for our discussion. Again, it mentions that the majority of them were over the age of 40. Second: a more in depth examination, 7 astronauts of age 50 or older. 5 of them suffered from sight problems during the mission, and all 7 suffered from some kind of sight problem after their mission. Again. No mention of women being specifically immune.
So, in conclusion, after roughly 2.5 hours of searching, and only finding ONE case where they mentioned that women were immune (and without numbers on how many women were even there), and yet, finding 2 cases where they mentioned that particularly old astronauts are at the highest risk, I would have to say that age likely has more to do with sight loss than what is or isn't between your legs. Also, there are people who are "immune" to this effect. Thus, regardless of gender, they should go, if we were to consider sight the absolute most important thing.
SangoProductions21 As if said in an earlier comment of yours... this was much more informative than the video, and much more objective. I think they need to hire you as the writer :P
Just as there were plenty of people who were willing to give their lives to be the first to colonize the Americas, there will be plenty of people willing to give their lives to be the first to colonize Mars.
That is an AWKWARD conversation at launch... Women: "Why are there no men on our crew?" NASA: "Oh, well women tend to starve themselves, so it saves us lots of money!!! THANKS BYYYYYEEEE!!!" Women"..."
Hunter Abbuhl Charlie Crome If you think about MarsOne that's true they are planning sending multiple groups of 4 without return. Also it is widely considered as a scam as they lack experience and funding. Nobody else (SpaceX, NASA...) plans a one way trip.
Charlie Crome There are plans for both one way trips and trips that return with several space agencies. (NASA, SpaceX) NASA has plans for both, but is going to have a two way trip first in the mid 2030's.
it bugs me how every con for man is 'unsolvable' and every con for women is explained like it isn't really a con and can be overlooked. like i've read in the comments, this is about how NASA should consider body mass when picking a crew, not sexes.
women better at communication? maybe, but men are better at organisation and leadership and pragmatism. Talking alone doesn't get the job done and having everyone have their say while you're leaking air is probably not a good idea. Women tend to work towards consensus alot more too, which hinders fast decision making. hate to have to add this: not all women and not all men, these are trends, very observable and generally true for most of them.
I wont even bother looking at the comments to find some guys feeling insecure and starting to rage. This is scientific and the best suitable people should be chosen. I don't care about if its men or women or both, they are humans, and I want to see humanity achieve new great things.
Then you won't see many good arguments against this video, like "men and women use food equally efficiently, women in the study were just physically smaller" "women handle the stress of space travel notably worse than men do" "The Guardian is not a reliable source for anything" "women's bodies have extra layers of complication and a cycle that results in greatly increased susceptibility to disease in an environment where diseases are extra-dangerous and extra-hard to cure" and "mixed-gender crews get along better than unigender crews"
Yeah I do agree with all those points. Just needed to rant ;) (did actually check some of the good comments) However IF one gender would be better suited than the other I would be ok with it. Thx for the summary mate.
You never see the men complaining about sexism, because only the feminists do that. Before you start defining feminist for me, I know what it means - But most feminists abuse it, using it as a title that allows them to be sexist without being called sexist, and allowing anyone who DOES call them sexist to be called sexist themselves.
8 лет назад
Nice topic, but it raised two questions: The cost for the radiation shield would it be able to keep things more cheap? And woman have other things that must be carried on, for the monthly higiene, that would add weight and extra expenses too. I think we should send 50/50.
+Fábio Pereira (Serzedo) Don't treat the issue of radiation as a female only problem. Men are affected as badly. It only takes two times longer for their bodies to resist it. Which means that for as long as the shield problem exists, we risk all astronauts coming back with some stage of cancer. And when it comes to menstruation - here you go: www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2827/how-do-female-astronauts-menstruate-in-space
Yeah but spacex whole ideology is reusable rockets so there hope of being able to send several teams there and back and have hem return and with a lot of samples. Reusable rockets are also a lot cheaper and if there is a team there for their life then one rockets can be used to send food and supplies back and forth rather than a shit ton of rockets to Mars
1 - Should the mission be called Valkirye, Diana or Amazon? 2 - Cancer susceptibility s a minor concern for someone who volunteer to be sent into the void strapped into a full load of explosive material with a limited source of breathable air. Plus, due to the medical scrutiny the returnees would be subjected, probably any cancer cell would be found early. 3 - Would it be too risky to rely in delivery to supply the mission? I mean, instead of loading the craft with all the materials, pods could be sent ahead of the main ship to be reached as they arrived in mars or even in the midway into the return? 4 - Is there any research about singlegender crews would behave in comparison to mixed crews in long time confinements - besides Big Brother?
Mustavo Gaia Regarding #3: That's probably what will happen: "waves" of robotic supply rockets being sent ahead of the manned mission instead of one gigantic spaceship with everything.
Mustavo Gaia haha yeah first off you are way to good informed on this issue to be watching this.. these videos are just meant to inform the uninformed :) 1 Amazon 2 seems logical no need to mention 3 You probably have heart of the mars direct mission, there are several docu's explaining the whole progress of Robert Zubrin trying to get nasa to play along its really good watched them all twice very intriguing. they explain its MUCH cheaper and MUCH safer to send several missions long before any humans leave earth. for refueling on mars and backup crafts etc. 4 yes a few like the mars500 and some others, but that is a purely isolation test in a non mars space-craft type of vehicle with non astronauts. so basically zero. but the one half of a bold twin has just began his 1 year space mission. but that is without centripetal gravity, so also pretty useless. 5 Just to put one out there, if the manned mars mission would be all female and the chosen females would be up to the task. It could be a healthy/necessary dent in the male ego. just saying... (no im no feminazi im just a regular guy) im more amazed that this Gabe Perez-Giz (video host) has not yet seen Interstellar?!?! how can he not have seen that?!?!
Zeo Stark not that informed, but i remember the disco in "yogi's space race" about #5, if it is the better way, let it be. Most of the mission will be robot-led anyway, humans will be there most for the pictures.
Michael Debbins thanks, i was unsure of that - should have checked. Well, if Bezos chipped in... Diana could be good for PR exactly because of the princess. Plus she was Apollo's sister. He took us to the Moon, let her take us to Mars.
***** yes instead, it won't be possible for one nation to afford the trip. too many technical problems that we don't know how to solve them. the spaceship will be huge and it would probably costs around 100 billion dollars
***** i've no idea what sls is. but that the estimated amount of money needed for the mission. we have still huge problems, gravity,radiations (huge HUGE problems because astronauts would become very hill during the mission) and a lot of other problems. the first manned mission to mars would be launched probably around 2030 i don't think any early than this.
***** well you probably are not a scientist and you don't know that without a shield from radiation astronauts will die on the surface of mars because of cancers, and nowadays the only option to block radiation is a shield of lead ( too much weight) and lots and lots of water (weight and space) scientists are trying to solve all these problems but nowadays no one, i repeat no one can go to mars with the current technology
+Tecnovlog sorry, but it will be an all NASA funded trip. NASA can get to Mars all by itself, you're talking about the best (under) funded space agency in the world, by a longshot.
I'd love to see what the wreckage would look like when the second crew makes it to Mars. Bickering and backbiting will be all they have on the black box XD
I don't see why women would eat less than men proportional to body mass. So the cost argument is more about choosing small people than about choosing women. Is there something I'm missing? This whole argument seems a little hypocritical - it reminds me of the argument "we don't hire women because they may get pregnant".
Considering this is PBS Space Time, I actually expected people to be mature and not to make sexist jokes in the comments. I was wrong. Humans are pathetic..
what's so wrong with jokes? They're just jokes! I think indeed that being able to differenciate jokes from reality is a great sign of maturity, while being unable to take them and getting offended by everything, a sign of its lack
No, the first Mars mission should NOT be all women; It should be 50/50. The optics and PR and public support FAR outweigh any 1% savings in food cost. Great video, as always!
Food is a small price to pay for competence. Send the best.. regardless of aesthetics. Also the risks from radiation make it a non-starter for women until we have very effective shielding.
