After Jeffrey Kluger, the author whose book on the flight of Apollo 13 became a hit movie starring Tom Hanks, wrote the first chapter of his new space novel, “Holdout,” he decided to change the leading character, a NASA astronaut from a man to a woman.
"After I wrote the first chapter, I just felt that I was leaving a lot of nuance and a lot of depth on the table. I felt like I could get more out of the character if she was a woman," he said.
Kluger, who’s written numerous other books on U.S. space missions, said women haven’t always received equal treatment when it comes to space travel.
"It is true that about 600 people, fewer than 600 people, have ever been to space, which is itself a remarkably small number when you think that there's seven and a half billion of us and you could fit anyone who's ever been to space inside of a simple ballroom," Kluger said. "And only about 65 of them have been women. So clearly, it has taken us a long time to begin to balance these gender scales better."
NASA was slow to involve women astronauts in U.S. space efforts, said Kluger.
"The Soviet Union flew Valentina Tereshkova into space in 1963. It took NASA 20 years to catch up and fly Sally Ride our first female, America's first female astronauts. So NASA is still playing catch up," he said.
While Kluger noted that recent NASA efforts include more women as astronauts, Renae Kerrigan, the planetarium director at the Peoria Riverfront Museum, said differences still exist.
"The pressure suits that the astronauts wear when they go out into the vacuum of space to work on the International Space Station. Those are not designed for a woman's body. Those are designed for the default astronaut, and the default astronaut is a man," Kerrigan said.
Kerrigan said that while women are expected to play a key role in NASA’s projected Artemis program that looks to return astronauts to the Moon, there’s still work ahead.
Having hosted hundreds of area schoolchildren at the museum’s planetarium shows, Kerrigan said that she’s observed that space holds an interest for all.
"Young people love space, and there is no distinction between in terms of enthusiasm between boys or girls. I think both boys and girls love the idea of space travel and and in my experience, I have equal numbers of young boys and young girls who say they want to go to space and be astronauts," Kerrigan said.
"I firmly believe that all children are born scientists, all children, no matter what gender, are born curious individuals who want to learn about the world. That's why they pester their parents with questions day in and day out, because they're scientists exploring the world, and the differences," she continued. "And then as children grow into young adults, there is less women involved in STEM careers. There are less women in the sciences. But that starts to happen in the teenage years where that gap starts to grow. And it's not because of a girls and women's nature. I think it's a lot more to do with our societal messaging and expectations that we give young women."
Kerrigan and her staff are working on a new planetarium show, “Dinosaurs Versus Asteroids,” that both boys and girls will be able to enjoy this fall.
