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Summary
Space is about to have a female population explosion as NASA would attempt to launch three women taking the number of women to four being simultaneously in space.One woman already is circling Earth in a Russian capsule, bound for the International Space Station, while NASA would send another three women to the orbiting outpost along with four men aboard shuttle Discovery. Men still will outnumber the women by more than 2-to-1 aboard the shuttle and station, but that won't take away from the remarkable achievement, coming 27 years after America's first female astronaut, Sally Ride, rocketed into space. A former schoolteacher is among the four female astronauts about to make history, as well as a chemist who once worked as an electrician, and two aerospace engineers. Three are American; one is Japanese. Metcalf-Lindenburger and Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki, both rookies, will become the 53rd and 54th women to fly in space and the 516th and 517th spacefarers, overall. Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the world's first space traveler in 1961. The Soviet Union followed with the world's first spacewoman in 1963: Valentina Tereshkova.
