The first Astronaut recruitment initiative in 11 years is being held by The European Space Agency (ESA) and it says that greater variety is one of its goals. The ESA an equivalent of NASA is on the lookout for more female astronauts this year and fulfilling the dreams of disabled people but with dreams of wanting to go to space
“We are looking towards the Moon … and Mars. We need very excellent astronauts for the future, to go farther than we ever have before, we need to look wider than we ever have before.” ESA Director General Jan Woerner said on Tuesday.
Only 65 of the more than 560 people who have ever gone into space have been women. Of those 65 women, 51 were American. The ESA has sent only two women into space — Claudie Haignere and Samantha Cristoforetti — and is now trying to redress the imbalance. T not enough to ‘add women and stir’
Associate Professor of Space Studies at Flinders University Alice Gorman said the agency was sending a powerful message with the recruitment drive, but that more needed to be done. “Just knowing that it could be a woman [or] an Indigenous person … taking those first footsteps on another planet, that has got to be a solar system breaking moment,” she said. “It’s a bit of a myth that the white male body is the best adapted to space,” she said. “Interestingly, in terms of space flight, women’s bodies and often people with disabilities adapt better to micro-gravity conditions.”
Professor Gorman said it was not enough to simply recruit more diverse employees. She said the space industry had to change in other ways. “It’s not enough to say, ‘I’m very supportive of getting women and different types of people’ … they have to act,” she said. “Particularly with technology, women are often being squeezed into something that’s been developed for men. “Adding women and stirring isn’t enough in these contexts. You have to redesign them from the ground up.
“I think Australia is in a great position to make these changes happen quickly. Everybody in space industry is very aware of this.” Director of the Australian National University Institute for Space Professor Anna Moore said the Australian space industry was “at the start of its journey, and that’s what makes this a really exciting prospect”. “There’s no reason whatsoever why the first person Mars or the first person going back to the Moon to stay there and live there shouldn’t be a woman,” she said. “In fact, you probably want there to be a woman there.”
Par astronaut recruitment a ‘world-first’
According to the ESA , “the time has come” to send people with disabilities to space as part of their initiative namely Parastonaut Feasibility Project and it’s the first for a space agency to open its doors for applications from persons with disabilities.
“Representing all parts of our society is a concern that we take very seriously,” said David Parker, the agency’s director of human and robotic exploration. Diversity at ESA should not only address the origin, age, background or gender of our astronauts, but also perhaps physical disabilities.”
According to the agency, the initial applications will be from individuals with lower limb deficiency below the know or ankle, extreme differences in leg length or who were below 130 centimeters (4 feet 3inches) in height. These are the categories set by the International Paralympic Committee.
British astronaut Tim Peake welcomed the initiative, and said it would “hopefully change the landscape” so people from diverse backgrounds would “see that actually there is an opportunity here to become part of Europe’s new space pioneers”.
It was said that, it would be in the region of about 18 months before at least a handful of astronauts are chosen. In 2019, the ESA signed a letter of intent with the new Australian Space Agency (ASA), which is headquartered in Adelaide. The agreement intends to strengthen ties between the agencies and to “expand their existing cooperation in the domain of peaceful uses of outer space”. The commitment covers areas including artificial intelligence, mission support and access to space.
