+
upworthy
More

Astronaut Peggy Whitson just became the oldest woman in space. It's a big deal.

The gender gap is strong in space.

Early Friday morning, Peggy Whitson made history as the oldest female astronaut to go into space.

Her record-breaking voyage launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA/Getty Images.


Whitson's achievement is great news and a reminder that people are capable of doing amazing things at any age.

59 women have been to space, and Whitson set the record as the oldest to do so at 56 years old. While it's certainly an achievement, it's far from the first record she's ever set.

Whitson has already racked up 377 days in space — the most of any woman in history — and became the first woman to command the International Space Station back in 2007. She also brought other women along on her journey of busting through career barriers on the way to space. In 2008, Whitson and Pam Melroy became the first two women to dock a space shuttle and the ISS.

But the oldest man to ever go into space was 21 years older than Whitson is now.

Despite Whitson's many accomplishments in the space race, her name probably sounds a lot less familiar to you than the man who holds the record for oldest person in space: astronaut John Glenn, who set the record at the age of 77.

That's one astronomically large gender-age gap.

John Glenn about to make history on the US space shuttle Discovery. Photo by AFP/Getty Images.

Glenn first made history as the first astronaut to orbit Earth back in 1962. Aside from being an astronaut, he was also a U.S. senator from Ohio, so it's understandable that his name is quite well-known.

Still, it's hard not to wonder why female astronauts like Whitson, who have many records under their belt, get so much less recognition than their male counterparts.

Simply put, in many cases, men were given the opportunity to set records and make space history before women were ever allowed to.

This goes all the way back to the founding of the astronaut program in 1959; NASA didn't start accepting female astronaut candidates until 1978.

While there were women working at NASA when Alan B. Shepard became the first American to make the journey into space on May 15, 1961, at the age of 38, it wasn't until 22 years later, in 1983, that Sally Ride became the first American woman to do so at the age of 33.

Sally Ride, one of the first six female astronaut candidates. Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images.

In 1959, there was also a small group of female astronaut candidates called Mercury 13 who were deemed qualified to go into space by a privately funded program, the BBC reported. Unfortunately, NASA turned down Mercury 13 because at the time, astronauts were required to be test pilots first, a job women were not allowed to hold. Tricky little catch-22 there.

On Oct. 11, 1984, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first woman to do a spacewalk, 19 years after Ed White first ventured outside a spacecraft in 1965.

Kathryn D. Sullivan and her space suit on a 1990 shuttle mission. Photo via NASA/Wikimedia Commons. Ed White on his space walk, June 3, 1965. Photo via NASA.

In 1992, eight years after Sullivan's spacewalk, the first black woman in space, Mae Carol Jemison, made her inaugural trip just nine years after the first black man, Guy Bluford.

This kind of age gap between genders doesn't exist in a vacuum.

The last Oscars season saw an average age difference of 10 years between the male and female nominated actors. This kind of discrepancy is the result of a number of factors, including a drop-off in available roles for women over a certain age and the fact that younger actresses are often cast to play older roles, not to mention the age gap between male and female actors who play romantic pairs on screen, which is even wider.

Jennifer Lawrence and Bryan Cranston, best actor and actress nominees at the 88th Academy Awards. Photos by Ethan Miller/Getty Images.

This matters because when we get used to seeing things a certain way, we start to accept that that's just how things are. An alarming example of this turned up in a study conducted in 2014 by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which found that in crowd scenes in movies, women make up about 17% of the crowd — a stat that mirrors the 16.9% of women who held Fortune 500 corporate board seats in 2014 and isn't far off from the 19.4% of women elected to Congress in 2015.

"We just heard a fascinating and disturbing study, where they looked at the ratio of men and women in groups," Davis said on NPR in 2013 when that 17% number came up again. "They found that if there's 17% women, the men in the group think it's 50-50. And if there's 33% women, the men perceive that as there being more women in the room than men."

Just because something feels equal doesn't mean it actually is. Seeing women of all ages, races, and body types playing the same range of roles male actors get to play (and getting paid the same amount) isn't just important because it's nice for people to see people like themselves on screen. It's important because these kinds of patterns subconsciously shape the way we see and interact with the real world around us every day.

The good news: NASA has made huge strides in recent years toward closing its gender gap — and Peggy Whitson is just part of that success.

Astronauts Thomas Pesquet, Peggy Whitson, and Oleg Novitskiy. Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images.

Half of NASA's most recent class of astronauts are women, and they might be among the first humans to venture to Mars. Eileen Collins became the first woman shuttle commander in 1999 and returned to command again in 2006. In 2008, South Korean astronaut Yi So-yeon become her country's first space traveler when she boarded the International Space Station.

Men may have gotten to a lot of the "firsts" when it comes to setting records in space, but there's a whole universe of other records waiting to be set, many of which will probably be achieved by women.

This is what makes Whitson's achievement as the oldest woman in space so worth celebrating. Remember her name. She's changing the way we see the world and what we think women over the age of 50 are capable of. Who knows, maybe 22 years from now, when she's 78, Whitson will break John Glenn's record and become the oldest person ever in space.

True

Making new friends as an adult is challenging. While people crave meaningful IRL connections, it can be hard to know where to find them. But thanks to one Facebook Group, meeting your new best friends is easier than ever.

Founded in 2018, NYC Brunch Squad brings together hundreds of people who come as strangers and leave as friends through its in-person events.

“Witnessing the transformative impact our community has on the lives of our members is truly remarkable. We provide the essential support and connections needed to thrive amid the city's chaos,” shares Liza Rubin, the group’s founder.

Despite its name, the group doesn’t just do brunch. They also have book clubs, seasonal parties, and picnics, among other activities.

NYC Brunch Squad curates up to 10 monthly events tailored to the specific interests of its members. Liza handles all the details, taking into account different budgets and event sizes – all people have to do is show up.

“We have members who met at our events and became friends and went on to embark on international journeys to celebrate birthdays together. We have had members get married with bridesmaids by their sides who were women they first connected with at our events. We’ve had members decide to live together and become roommates,” Liza says.

Members also bond over their passion for giving back to their community. The group has hosted many impact-driven events, including a “Picnic with Purpose” to create self-care packages for homeless shelters and recently participated in the #SquadSpreadsJoy challenge. Each day, the 100 members participating receive random acts of kindness to complete. They can also share their stories on the group page to earn extra points. The member with the most points at the end wins a free seat at the group's Friendsgiving event.

Keep ReadingShow less
Education

3,700-year-old Babylonian stone tablet gets translated, changes history

They were doing trigonometry 1500 years before the Greeks.

via UNSW

Dr. Daniel Mansfield and his team at the University of New South Wales in Australia have just made an incredible discovery. While studying a 3,700-year-old tablet from the ancient civilization of Babylon, they found evidence that the Babylonians were doing something astounding: trigonometry!

Most historians have credited the Greeks with creating the study of triangles' sides and angles, but this tablet presents indisputable evidence that the Babylonians were using the technique 1,500 years before the Greeks ever were.

Keep ReadingShow less
Family

Mom’s blistering rant on how men are responsible for all unwanted pregnancies is on the nose

“ALL unwanted pregnancies are caused by the irresponsible ejaculations of men. Period. Don't believe me? Let me walk you through it."

Mom has something to say... strongly say.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormons, are a conservative group who aren't known for being vocal about sex.

But best selling author, blogger, and mother of six, Gabrielle Blair, has kicked that stereotype to the curb with a pointed thread on reducing unwanted pregnancies. And her sights are set directly at men.

Keep ReadingShow less
Family

Dad takes 7-week paternity leave after his second child is born and is stunned by the results

"These past seven weeks really opened up my eyes on how the household has actually ran, and 110% of that is because of my wife."

@ustheremingtons/TikTok

There's a lot to be gleaned from this.

Participating in paternity leave offers fathers so much more than an opportunity to bond with their new kids. It also allows them to help around the house and take on domestic responsibilities that many new mothers have to face alone…while also tending to a newborn.

All in all, it enables couples to handle the daunting new chapter as a team, making it less stressful on both parties. Or at least equally stressful on both parties. Democracy!

TikTok creator and dad Caleb Remington, from the popular account @ustheremingtons, confesses that for baby number one, he wasn’t able to take a “single day of paternity leave.”

This time around, for baby number two, Remington had the privilege of taking seven weeks off (to be clear—his employer offered four weeks, and he used an additional three weeks of PTO).

The time off changed Remington’s entire outlook on parenting, and his insights are something all parents could probably use.

Keep ReadingShow less
Science

She tattooed half her face and you'd never know it. Her skills are just that good.

This incredible medical tattoo technology is giving renewed hope to burn victims.

All images via the CBS/YouTube

Basma Hameed runs a tattoo shop, of sorts...


Meet Samira Omar.

The 17-year-old was the victim of a horrific bullying incident.

Keep ReadingShow less
Images via Alan Taylor/Flickr, used with permission.

Updating the kitchen.


Remember those beloved Richard Scarry books?

Books from when you were a kid?

Keep ReadingShow less
Education

Voice recordings of people who were enslaved offer incredible first-person accounts of U.S. history

"The results of these digitally enhanced recordings are arresting, almost unbelievable. The idea of hearing the voices of actual slaves from the plantations of the Old South is as powerful—as startling, really—as if you could hear Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee speak." - Ted Koppel

Library of Congress

When we think about the era of American slavery, many of us tend to think of it as the far distant past. While slavery doesn't exist as a formal institution today, there are people living who knew formerly enslaved black Americans first-hand. In the wide arc of history, the legal enslavement of people on U.S. soil is a recent occurrence—so recent, in fact, that we have voice recordings of interviews with people who lived it.

Keep ReadingShow less