As of March 30, 2017, Astronaut, Peggy Whitson broke two huge records for NASA. She now holds the records for the most spacewalks completed by a woman and the longest EVA time completed by a woman. But she also holds the record for the oldest women in space at the age of 57 currently and in April of 2017, she will hold yet another record for women because she will have been the only woman to command the Interantional Space Station twice.
Peggy Whitson has been breaking records and receiving awards for NASA and the Space Program since she joined. She was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996 and was assigned the job of the leader of the Crew Test Support in Russia. She has now done 3 tours for the International Space Station; Expedition 5 (2002), Expedition 16 (late 2007-2008), and Expedition50/51 (2016-TBD). She is currently the only woman on the ISS.
She has 15 awards from NASA ranging from the NASA Silver Snoopy Award which awards those who have outstanding achievements in human safety during a space mission to the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal which is given to those who majorly affect technical or administrative programs in NASA. However, she can now add the most spacewalks and longest EVA time to her resume.
NASA Astronaut Suni Williams originally held the record with 7 walks and the amount of time spent on those walk total to 50 hours and 40 minutes. Peggy Whitson just beat that record with 8 walks, gaining herself a total of 53 hours and 22 minutes with her latest walk on March 30th.
Peggy's eighth walk began at 11:29 GMT with her American counterpart on the ISS, Astronaut Shame Kimbrough. This spacewalk lasted around seven hours in space. The two of them were working on accommodating the spacecraft from the last spacewalk where Kimbrough was working on improving the computer system on board the ISS. However, during this latest spacewalk, Kimbrough lost an axial shield that would protect the astronauts and the ISS from micrometeoroids. NASA got word of the lost shield and figured up a temporary fix to the problem.
Nonetheless, this walk was a record breaker for Peggy Whitson and for women in general. Peggy and Suni are the only women who have a record of the most extravehicular activity out of a list of 30 astronauts. There are 28 other men who have made records but it is Peggy and Sunni who are now in the top 10 of the most EVA time.
It seems fitting that Peggy would break this record at the end of Women's History Month and that in a field that most are men. There are 537 total astronauts ranging from Russia, Canada, France, China, India, and the US, but only 60 of them are women. Only 11% of astronauts are women which is an incredibly low amount.
As a woman, I find this record to be an influential one because of the lack of woman as astronauts and the lack of women with the most EVA time. Peggy Whitson has done amazing things as a woman in NASA but I wish there were more opportunities for there to be more Peggy's in the world.
But it is comforting that while there are women trying to break the glass ceiling here on Earth, there are those that are trying to reach for the stars.
