3…2…1…Blast Off!

Have you ever dreamed of being an astronaut? I can’t say that I ever wanted to be one, but I think spending a day in an anti-gravity tank would be kind of cool. My 10 year old daughter has been fascinated with astronomy and earth science ever since her class completed a unit on space and the universe and has been telling me I need to make an astronaut design. So I’ve been working on the Girls Can’t WHAT? Astronaut design for a couple days now and despite about a half dozen technical issues (you know…”Houston, we have a problem”), it is finally available in the Girls Can’t WHAT? Gift Shop.

Girls Can’t WHAT? Astronaut Gifts!

[zstore contributorhandle=”girlscantwhat” productlineid=”196564451705682507″ showpagination=”false” showhowmany=”9″ defaultsort=”popularity” showsorting=”false”]

Click Here To See All Astronaut Gifts

As always, I try to do my homework before starting a drawing to get a feel for the style of the design. Finding a good action photo of a female astronaut proved to take a bit longer than I anticipated. That surprised me because I remember enough from high school history class to name several women cosmonauts. Here is a quick timeline for women in space:

• 1963 – Valentina Tereshkova from the USSR becomes the first woman in space.
• 1978 – Six women are selected as candidates by NASA: Rhea Seddon, Kathryn Sullivan, Judith Resnik, Sally Ride, Anna Fisher and Shannon Lucid.
• 1983 – Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.
• 1984 – Svetlana Savitskaya from the USSR becomes first woman to walk in space.
• 1984 – Kathryn Sullivan becomes first American woman to walk in space.
• 1984 – Anna Fisher becomes the first person to retrieve a malfunctioning satellite, using the orbiter remote manipulator arm.
• 1992 – Kathy Thornton is the second woman to walk in space and sets the record for the longest space walk by a woman.
• 1992 – Bonnie Dunbar and Ellen Baker dock with the Russian space station.
• 1992 – Mae Jemison becomes first African American woman in space.
• 1993 – Ellen Ochoa becomes first Hispanic American woman in space.
• 1994 – Chiaki Mukai becomes the first Japanese woman in space.
• 1995 – Eileen Collins becomes first woman to pilot a space shuttle.
• 1996 – Shannon Lucid returns from her six months on Mir, the Russian space station, with a record for the time in space for women and for Americans — she is also the first woman to be awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
• 1998 – Nearly 2/3 of the flight control team for STS-95 were women, including the launch commentator, Lisa Malone, the ascent commentator, Eileen Hawley, the flight directory, Linda Harm, and the communicator between crew and mission control, Susan Still.
• 1998 – December – Nancy Currie completes the first task in assembling the International Space Station.
• 1999 – Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to command a space shuttle.
• 2002 – Biochemist Peggy Whitson becomes the first resident scientist of the International Space Station.
• 2005 – Eileen M. Collins, the first woman to pilot and to command a NASA space shuttle, commands Discovery for NASA’s first shuttle mission since the Columbia accident in 2003.