Female spacewalkers have inside track?

JESSICA Meir (left) and Christina Koch before their spacewalk aboard the International Space Station. AFP

CALIFORNIA (AFP) — What’s even better than venturing out into the vacuum of space? Landing on the Moon, according to US astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir, the first all-female duo to conduct a spacewalk.

As a child in elementary school, marine biologist Meir recalled drawing pictures of herself standing on the barren world orbiting our own.

“So I think maybe I’ll make that my new dream,” she told reporters in a live news conference from the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA is seeking to return to the Moon by 2024 on the Artemis 3 mission. Two astronauts will stride its surface, the first time humanity has done so since 1972, and at least one of them will be a woman, the space agency’s chief Jim Bridenstine has promised.

What’s more, the woman will be one of the 12 current female members of the astronaut corps, said Bridenstine.

Meir and Koch, both in their forties and recruited in 2013, seem to be natural candidates.

“The idea of having the honor of being the first woman to walk on the Moon is almost too great to fathom,” said Koch, 40, when asked by AFP about the subject.