On Monday night, the government organization that has sent human beings to the moon somehow miscalculated clothing sizes. NASA was forced to cancel what would have been the first all-female spacewalk because only one of the two spacesuits available was appropriately sized. Anne McClain, one-half of the female duo that was set to launch this Friday, had to give her spot to a male counterpart. McClain, who was supposed to travel with Christina Koch, attempted to walk and maneuver in the large-size suit during testing last week, but in the end it was determined she’d best be able to accomplish her mission in a medium-size suit. As Stephanie Schierholz, a spokeswoman for NASA, said in her announcement, “Anne trained in ‘M’ and ‘L’ and thought she could use a large but decided after [last] Friday’s spacewalk a medium fits better.”
In the hours that followed this announcement, women across the world took to social media to express their frustration at what many thought was an obvious fix for an entity whose foundation is built on precise math and science. One such woman was former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who sent out a tweet this morning in response to the news. She said, bluntly, “Make another suit.”
Didn’t NASA watch Hidden Figures, the film that tells the tale of the three African-American women—Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson—who helped launch astronaut John Glenn into orbit? In defense of the change in plans, however, NASA’s Schierholz said, “In this case, it’s easier (and faster!) to change space-walkers than reconfigure the suit.”