Four Female Astronauts in Historic Rendezvous at International Space Station 50 Years After 1st Woman in Space

Four female astronauts to rendezvous at International Space Station 50 years after first woman went in space. Historic feat flies under mainstream media and NASA's radar.

Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, left, Naoko Yamazaki and Stephanie Wilson

during a training session at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery blasted off Monday, heading for the International Space Station and this time, this mission has made history -- it has put more women into orbit than ever before. The Discovery blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 6:21 a.m. and it is the first shuttle mission with three female crew members -- Stephanie Wilson, 43 (an African American), Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, 34 and Naoko Yamazaki, 39. The women will also join Tracy Caldwell Dyson, 40, who is already on the ISS, for another first.

It is amazing that this historic feat is being under-reported in the mainstream media at the expense of Tiger Woods' upcoming press conference, Jesse James' chronic cheating and Michael Steele, just being an idiot. It is also amazing that NASA didn't push this historic feat in the media. According to the U.K. Times Online, Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations at NASA, said, “Maybe that’s a credit to the system, right, that I don’t think of it as male or female?” It should be noted that he was unaware of this historic milestone until it was pointed out to him during a recent press conference.

Although 13 American women passed the same NASA training tests in 1963 as the Mercury 7 — America’s original all-male astronaut team — the space agency refused to admit women to its astronaut ranks until 1978. Valentina Tereshkova was the first women in space in 1963, but it was not until 20 years later that NASA followed with an American, Sally Ride. Before Discovery’s launch a total of 52 women have flown in space. Ms. Metcalf-Lindenburger and Ms. Yamazaki, both rookies, will become the 53rd and 54th women to fly in space — and the 516th and 517th spacefarers overall. Source: U.K. Times Online

 The Discovery, whose crew also includes four men, will deliver ten tons of supplies to the ISS during its 13-day mission. I will echo President Obama's view that we must teach our children that embarking on a career in math and science is very rewarding and should be embraced.

SHOP AMAZON.COM:  Michael Lewis: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine and John Grisham: The Associate: A Novel