Do you know who our country’s first female astronaut is? She is Liu Yang, who officially entered space in 2012. She set an initial example for subsequent female astronauts and is a sonorous rose that must be mentioned in the history of China's aerospace industry.
On June 5, 2022, China's manned spacecraft Shenzhou 14 was successfully launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center , and Liu Yang was also among them.
Astronauts will encounter many problems from work and life in space. So what will happen to female astronauts if they get their period in space?
When the first "she" stepped into space, did she encounter any trouble from her "aunt"?
Among all the countries that have entered the space field, all manned space missions have sent male astronauts into space first, and then female astronauts to come into contact with the stars.
The root cause is partly due to the fear that female astronauts will not be attracted by gravity to flow downwards in the weightless state of space and will flow backward into the abdominal cavity and pelvic cavity. Menstrual blood reflux is very dangerous and is likely to cause endometrium. Ectopia , chocolate cyst , severe cases can even lead to infection, which is life-threatening.
On June 16, 1963, Valentina. Tereshkova of the former Soviet Union became the first female astronaut to visit space. The 26-year-old female astronaut stayed in space for 70 hours. After successfully returning to Earth 40 minutes later, she did not experience her period.
The world's first female astronaut
In 1983, the United States' first female astronaut "Sally Ride" entered space, becoming the third woman to enter space. Before the 32-year-old physicist entered space, American engineers prepared more than a hundred tampons for her. When she returned to Earth six days later, she had used less than half of them.
The first female astronaut in the United States
In 2012, Liu Yang, the first female astronaut in China, entered space.
years of practice have proven that after women enter space, their menstrual periods are basically the same as on earth, and there is no reverse menstrual blood flow as scientists speculated. Because when female astronauts have their period, even without the influence of gravity, menstrual blood will be discharged from the body through uterine contractions. There will be no backflow.
Prior to this, people were worried that women's premenstrual syndrome and changes in hormone levels in the body would affect female astronauts' control of spacecraft.
So as of 2021, a total of 65 women around the world have visited space. Most women use oral contraceptives or other drugs to delay their menstrual periods. However, this method has an impact on women’s health and may cause hormone levels to fluctuate. , disorder, and even affecting fertility. There is also a part of normal life, where you go through your menstrual period normally. Except that you cannot spacewalk during your menstrual period, it is not much different from normal life on earth.
What kind of training does a female astronaut need to undergo before going to space?
Manned spaceflight activities are incomplete without the participation of women.
Of course, men and women still have differences in their own conditions. Generally speaking, men are better than women in terms of strength, reaction speed, logical thinking, etc., while women are better than men in terms of language communication, understanding ability, and psychological quality.
China’s female astronaut candidates come from active transport aircraft pilots. They need nearly a thousand hours of flight experience, good physical fitness and flying skills. Generally, it takes more than 2 years of training to achieve basic flight conditions, and then proceed. Only after passing the assessment can you truly become an astronaut.
China's first female astronaut
The first step in the preliminary selection is aviation medical health assessment, including internal medicine, neurology , ophthalmology, otolaryngology and more than 100 major projects. Astronauts must be "absolutely healthy" and cannot have any minor ailments, such as rhinitis, myopia, snoring while sleeping, etc. Even family members must undergo physical examinations. There must be no history of serious diseases for the next three generations, and hidden disease risks must be completely eliminated.
Female astronauts also need to undergo additional gynecological examinations, and women who are unmarried, pregnant, or have experienced caesarean section cannot be selected. Because although life in space is not much different from normal life, the impact of weightlessness cannot be underestimated. For women, it is very likely that a woman will be unable to have children after a trip to space for four to five years, or even seven or eight years.
Therefore, considering that young women who want to be mothers cannot be deprived of their rights, female astronauts are usually selected only from married mothers.
Next, they must undergo psychological tests such as intelligence, concentration, and coordination, as well as endurance, explosive power, etc. Physical fitness test. There is also a "Special Environmental Factors Endurance Selection", which is a test unique to astronauts, including hypobaric hypoxia endurance, overweight endurance, lower body negative pressure endurance, vibration and noise endurance, etc.
Chinese female astronaut Wang Yaping once said: "The space environment will not change because of the arrival of women, nor will the threshold be lowered because the astronauts are women." Therefore, if women want to go to space, they have to go through it with men. Basically the same training.
Chinese astronaut Wang Yaping
For example, because people are still unable to overcome the inconvenience caused by weightlessness or microgravity, there is a 40 kilopascal pressure difference between the outer space spacesuit and the space environment. When doing the action of "walking" in space, you need to overcome a considerable pressure difference between inside and outside to achieve it, which is very physically demanding and requires the person doing this action to have a certain amount of strength.
Spacewalk
In terms of strength, for example, underwater extravehicular training requires wearing a 200 kilogram underwater training suit, training for six or seven hours without interruption, and you cannot go to the toilet, eat, or drink water. Just this kind of underwater exit training needs to be carried out dozens of times. Men and women are different. Women are not as strong as men in terms of strength and endurance. Naturally, this type of training is more difficult for them.
Underwater cabin training
Others include centrifuge training, swivel chair training, weightlessness training, etc. These are very tough and difficult trainings. Every astronaut needs to go through these trainings before going into space.
Centrifuge training
In fact, are women more suitable for long-term space life than men?
Currently, women account for about 11% of all astronauts in the world. Most female pilots are mission specialists, that is, aerospace engineers .
A large number of theories and practices have shown that female astronauts feel more acutely, have delicate minds, and consider problems comprehensively.
Moreover, under microgravity conditions, female astronauts have better estrogen levels and magnesium metabolism than male astronauts, and the iron content in their bodies is low, making them less prone to iron poisoning , thrombosis , and heart rhythm disorders, etc. and other problems, it is more suitable for long-term missions in space.
And relatively speaking, female astronauts also have the advantage of extravehicular space walking, because the overall body is smaller and more flexible, and it is easier to control the body and complete more delicate work.
Female astronauts will also bring vitality to the flight crew. Working together between men and women can make the cooperation between the two parties smoother. In addition, women going to space will be more conducive to the development of medical research and the improvement of space life sciences.
The aviation record set by "them"
The world's first space shuttle female captain is Erin Collins of the United States. Collins has carried out four space missions. In 2005, she flew the space shuttle to the International Space Station, performing the world's first 360-degree backflip of a space shuttle, saving the United States from being hit by the crash of the space shuttle Columbia. The reputation and even fate of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Erin Collins
The first female stationmaster of the International Space Station was Peggy Whitson of the United States. She holds the world record for women's spacewalks 10 times, totaling 60 hours and 21 minutes. Not only that, she is also the astronaut with the longest cumulative space flight time in the world, reaching 665 days, 17 hours and 22 minutes.
Peggy Whitson
The strongest athlete in space is the American female astronaut Sunita Williams.She was the first to run a marathon and complete a triathlon on the International Space Station.
Sunita Williams
The world record for a single extravehicular activity of 8 hours and 56 minutes was completed on March 11, 2001 by American female astronaut Susan Helms and a male astronaut.
The world record for the longest continuous stay in space is 328 days, set by American female astronaut Christina Koch in 2020.
Christina Koch
The first Asian female astronaut to enter space was Japan's Chiaki Mukai. She entered space on the "Columbia" space shuttle in 1994.
Chiaki Mukai
These outstanding female astronauts have contributed their own strength to the cause of space medicine for all mankind and to the development of the aerospace industry of their motherland. There will be sacrifices.
Maybe my health has been affected, I am suffering from cancer , and I am infertile.
Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have time of his own. He has been fighting for the aerospace industry all his life and has no entertainment of his own.
Perhaps it is due to the alienation of family and friendship. I don’t have much time to spend with my relatives, and I can’t even spend time with my parents in their twilight years.
But these are worth it to them. These sacrifices not only allow mankind to take another step towards the universe, but also show the universe the power from "her".
