In The Case for Mars, Bob Zubrin suggests that women may be physiologically better-suited to the space environment, given a lesser likelihood of coronary episodes; when spacing walking, heart rates apparently zoom well best 100 beats per minute. Conversely, lower blood iron content means a greater risk of anemia, as I recall. (As I'm sure you trust your readers for medical advice, pass it along!)

If there are already enough women in the program in 2007 that, coincidentally, two might be commanding missions simultaneously, where will we be in 25 years when we do land on Mars? Surely there'll be enough women that the first footprint might be female. It would be fitting.

"It says a lot about the first 50 years of spaceflight that this is where we're at."

In other words... spaceflight has become safe enough for women to do it.

Let me know when the first all-female coal mine comes into existance.

This will be a great milestone even if coincidental...congrats to the women in the space program for their success!

But, lest we Americans pat ourselves on the back too much over this, let's all remember that the Soviets had women in space a full 20 years before we did. We're no trailblazers in this regard, by any means.

It's great to see this story getting wider coverage. We hear so little about the space program anyway, except that every time a shuttle goes up, everyone's worried it's going to explode. It's nice to have some good news for a change!

I hope a lot of girls and young women are seeing this and are empowered by it. Now, if only we could get more than one or two female Fortune 500 CEOs at the same time...

Say, you do realize that after the Soviets launched Valentina Tereshkova into space, they never launched another female Cosmonaut, showing that it was mainly for propaganda.

Based on your reaction today, I can see the propaganada worked pretty well.

I agree, Tereshkova was mainly for propaganda. However, she did prove that a woman could be flung into into outer space in a tiny tin can and be brave enough come back with a smile.

But meanwhile in America, throughout the sixties, NASA tested women for spaceflight. All the data said that the women being tested performed as well as, if not better than, than the men who were already in the astronaut program.

But the data was not acted upon. Instead they treated it like the Nixon/Ford administration treated the evidence that THC kills breast and lung cancer cells -- they buried so deeply that it literally vanished from public view for 20 years.

That's not something to be proud of.

They buried scientific data and conducted their astronaut program as if this data had never been gathered in their labs.

Lying about science is something that really burns me and I have a hard time forgiving it when I see it happen.

Now thank goodness the lies have finally lost all their power.

Perhaps we could send all feminists into space en route to colonizing Mars.

What a beautiful thought *sniff*....

I tend to underestimate the symbolic importance of such an event, but it can't help but inspire some girls to get into astronomy or astronaut training.

The bigger issue is why is it considered so weird in the first place?

- Too few women are into this field, since it is dangerous and risky

- Too many old school engineers are still biased against females achieving anything in science

I do look forward to the day when everyone has the chance to fly in space regardless of gender. Of course, I also look forward to the 'Starship Troopers' model, complete with co-ed bathrooms and Denise Richards showering in the next stall.

Your knowledge of the Soviet space program is lacking. They most certainly did employ female cosmonauts after that--there were women on the Soviet space stations such as Salyut and Mir. Do you believe everything you read in National Review magazine?

Admittedly the Soviets' first female cosmonaut was used mostly for symbolic, propaganda purposes, but think about it--isn't it rather telling that they thought it important to score propaganda points on gender issues vis-a-vis the US, and they put a woman in space in the early 60s, when the US had officially disqualified women from the space program? Regardless of WHY they first launched a female cosmonaut, they still did so 20 years before the US even considered sending a woman into space for any reason. The US still looks lame in comparison. We thought so little of women that we couldn't even contemplate giving one a space mission for propaganda purposes. We were behind the curve on this one--propaganda or no propaganda, just like we trailed the Soviets in space by virtually every yardstick until the late 60s. Deal with it.

List of female Cosmonauts and their accomplishments:

Kondakova Elena Vladimirovna (26th female astronaut of the world.)

1 Soyuz-TM20 22h.42m.30s.

Oct 03, 1994 FE

PE-17/MIR Soyuz-TM20 04h.04m.05s.

Mar 22, 1995 169d.05h.21m.35s. 169d.05h.21m.35s.

2 STS-84

(Atlantis/19) 08h.07m.48s.

May 15, 1997 MS

VE-20/MIR STS-84

(Atlantis/19) 13h.28m.36s.

May 24, 1997 9d.05h.20m.48s. 178d.10h.42m.23s

Savitskaya Svetlana Eugenyevna (2nd female astronaut of the world.)

1 Soyuz-T 7 17h.11m.52s.

Aug 19, 1982 AI

VE-2/SLT7 Soyuz-T 5 15h.04m.16s.

Aug 27, 1982 7d.21h.52m.24s. 7d.21h.52m.24s.

2 Soyuz-T12 17h.40m.54s.

Jul 17, 1984 FE

VE-4/SLT7 Soyuz-T12 12h.55m.30s.

Jul 29, 1984 11d.19h.14m.36s. 19d.17h.07m.00s.

Tereshkova Valentina Vladimirovna (First female astronaut of the world (USSR).)

1 Vostok-6 09h.29m.

Jun 16, 1963 Plt Vostok-6 08h.20m.

Jun 19, 1963 2d.22h.50m. 2d.22h.50m.

Russia does indeed have a poor record of training female cosmonauts, having only put 3 women into space, where as the American have put 41 trained female astronauts into space.

But the Russians did put the first woman into space (they also put the second woman into the space), and they did put more than one up there.

This news is truly, deeply bothersome to the anti-feminist blowhards, apparently. Most of us got over the "no girls in the treehouse" mentality around puberty... I guess I know where the ones who didn't are hanging out these days.