The inaugural trip to Mars might be 15 years away as every single equipment needs to be tested and prepared, but NASA already seems to have achieved a milestone as the latest class of astronauts which are likely to go to Mars, has equal number of men and women.
While developed nations are in the race to land robots on Mars, NASA has partnered with firms like SpaceX to send human missions and commercial trips. Unlike the missions to moon, women are playing pivotal roles in the race to Mars, as they make up 50% of a class selected from 6000 candidates, as reported by Glamour.
These women consist of brave-hearts who have flown combat missions to Iraq and dived into thick layers of ice in Antarctica. They also went through a two year training which included flying T-38 supersonic jets, mastering tasks under water, and surviving a plane ride that induces weightlessness by free-falling.
The four women, Nicole Aunapu Mann, Anne McClain, Jessica Meir and Christina Hammock Koch, are a part of a batch of eight. which was selected in 2013. They will travel a distance of 35 million miles to Mars in a period of six to nine months. The mission has a lot of significance, after evidence of water on the planet was discovered.
While this is a great leap forward from the 60s, the mission will be a major success for all human beings as it will allow us to know about the past and future of our own planet.