women in space (but with legos so it's fun)

A short history on women in space. The NASA Artemis mission will put women on the moon in 2024. But will they? Are women still allowed to have jobs in 2024?
LEGO kit: LEGO Creator 3in1 Space Shuttle Adventure 31117 Building Kit

[@PaulPower4]

Fun extra fact about Sally Ride, she was the whistleblower who leaked the information that the solid rocket boosters' rubber O-rings freezing was the likely cause of the Challenger disaster to the US Military (who then had to subtly guide Richard Feynman onto the path of discovering the freezing O-ring thing independently, to both protect Ride and not make it look like a military organisation was interfering in a civilian organisation's affairs). I mean, I say "fun extra fact" but the sombre tone of this video's ending makes me feel like fun extra facts aren't appropriate :( . I hope America can sort itself out, though I've no idea how...

[@Skank_and_Gutterboy]

She knew and she did right in saying something but crediting her with being "the" whistleblower is a bit ridiculous. My Finite Element Analysis professor in the mid-90s was a Thiokol engineer that did engineering for the boosters. He walked off his job the morning that they decided to launch. The O-rings were a known issue for years before the Challenger loss. My prof didn't run to the media but he sure let it fly when he was interviewed by the AIB (Accident Investigation Board), so did a lot of other people. What motivation would they have to keep it quiet? Ain't gonna happen. The o-ring issue nearly killed the crew of STS-41D in 1984. The crew knew about it before Challenger, so the secret was already out. What really sucks is that the AIB report didn't do their due diligence in getting to the root-cause of the mishap. They blamed it on faulty o-rings (in other words, a hardware problem). NO! It was a management problem. The root-cause was poor NASA management and a too-cozy relationship between Thiokol bosses and NASA bosses. The AIB didn't do enough to look into those human-factors.

[@vindik8or]

@@Skank_and_Gutterboy I'd say that the investigation finding of "normalization of deviance" was very much a management critique. Unfortunately the Columbia disaster showed that it was a criticism that was never adequately addressed.

[@Skank_and_Gutterboy]

@@vindik8or I agree. There were a lot of good positive changes after Challenger but the poor management, which wasn't completely rooted out, slowly made a comeback and managed to kill another shuttle in the early 2000s.

[@LemonLadyRecords]

I never heard the Sally Ride thing, and I watched the shuttle blow up. And read all the books. I lived close to Mission Control, in an astronaut neighborhood. And knew rocket scientists. Most weren't buying any of the responsibility/culture/mgmt issues, and pissed about the way NASA was portrayed, even though the o-rings were a known issue, and in part due to having to have so many because they had to break them down to travel from Utah (thanks for that space pork, Sen. Orrin Hatch!) to the Cape. And there was a definite safe operating temperature, which was ignored. It was biazzre, the total disconnect between reality and NASA culture (TBF, it WAS heartbreaking and difficult to come to terms with, I cried every time I came home and saw the houses draped in black where before draped in hope and cheers and school stuff, and stricken friends). And so it happened again. And almost did several other times, just dumb NASA luck it didn't. Ditto the ice breaking off the heat shield tiles. Space is hard, but failures and lost lives should be due to hard space, not stuff most of us would know if we RTFM or reviewed the launch film in slo-mo or saw missing leading edge tiles upon return. And people told us. It's still triggering, I guess!

[@Skank_and_Gutterboy]

@@LemonLadyRecords I agree with everything you said EXCEPT your complaint about the SRBs being made in Utah. Unless they're manufactured on-site at Cape Canaveral (which is impossible), they're going to have be broken down and shipped in sections. There's no way around that, it doesn't matter if they're made down the road in Orlando, Alabama, or California. By your logic, every other rocket motor made is pork and a scam, too. Most rocket motors are made in the western United States so that you don't endanger large populations if the solid fuel manufacturing facility goes kaboom, which explodes with the yield of a small nuclear device (reference: the PEPCON rocket fuel facility in Henderson, Nevada that exploded in 1988; the series of explosions were so large that residents in rural areas thought that World War III had started and military bases near Las Vegas were being hit with nuclear weapons; the two largest explosions were in the kiloton range and we had to prove to the rest of the world that were weren't doing nuclear testing in violation of treaty).

[@DanielStaniforth]

You sorted all the pieces before assembly instead of rummaging around in a pile? I never once thought of that as a kid

[@jamesc5751]

Knolling. It's prreettttty cool.

[@JennPott]

I, for one, am disgusted by this efficiency. It means we didn't get to hear her talk longer.

[@dannygjk]

I taught my son to be organized when completing a project. He learned the value of planning and organization.

[@AathielVaDaath]

I consider this to be absolute heresy...

[@KitagumaIgen]

Couple of my mates are working in construction/civil engineering, and they explained that 70+% of their job is logistics and planning - getting the correct amount of stuff delivered in the right order on schedule - and I realized I luckily went into another field of work.

[@arsenelupin123]

Good to know that Congressmen embarrassing themselves for posterity is a long and proud American tradition

[@daledouglas5900]

You’re a great storyteller! I hope your channel goes to the moon.

[@zactron1997]

The term "pre-pregnant woman" is something I've never heard before, and its absolutely terrifying in its implications. Love this video! My mum has been working as a policy liaison officer for the Australian Space Agency for a while now, and sadly these kinds of "white cis men are the default" decisions are still so prevalent. I wont list any specifics, but it's clear the agency has gained a lot of knowledge about women and art thanks to her!

[@mihailmilev9909]

Thank you and your mother for your service to humanity!

[@mihailmilev9909]

10th like Double digits yaaay

[@scottsanford1451]

@@Christian___ I think you missed the point. Radiation causes cancer too. It's a risk choice (right, I said "choice"). Gender doesn't matter.

[@oiytd5wugho]

@@Christian___ I don't think you're grasping the implication, Christian. Nobody was asking (and many nowadays still wouldn't) "if a woman was intending on having kids in the future", no. A woman was intended to give birth, hence "pre-pregnant". Medically, calling someone pre-[condition] means that the condition will develop unless intervening actions are taken or as a matter of fact (e.g. pre-menopausal, pre-diabetic). It's saying the woman WILL be pregnant, because "that's what they do". IDK if you're unaware of the patriarchal expectation of motherhood that's mandated socially and even legally or you're pretending to be oblivious.

[@Amethyst_Friend]

@@Christian___Humanity is in no danger of dying out, Christian.

[@Wolf_Avatar]

100 tampons is hilarious but on the scale of "don't know how women work" it's better than the guys who think a woman only needs one tampon per period. Honestly my guess on how they came up with that number would be more along the lines of deciding on a weight allotment rather than ridiculously rounding everything up.

[@aethelredtheready1739]

Ya and like. They asked. They realized they didn’t know, so they asked.

[@thepapschmearmd]

Yes they asked. It’s good they asked. But it is indicative of a fundamental lack of understanding. That lack of understanding is how we get lawmakers saying that women can control whether they let the sperm get into their uterus if they’re raped, that they can swallow a pill to look in their uterus to check the status of the fetus, or admit they have absolutely no clue how pregnancy even works, and then strip women’s reproductive rights away because they don’t understand or care to understand how women’s bodies work. Yes these are all things that were said in public hearings by lawmakers in the US, all in states that then promptly banned abortion care despite being educated by OB/GYNs. These people grow up being raised in misogyny and their education does nothing to combat this world view. If they received comprehensive and accurate sex education in school, maybe even one of those lawmakers would view women as people.

[@senefelder]

They were experts whose job was literally to know those stuffs. The fact that they didn’t know shows a systematic lack of awareness about the presence of women in the real world

[@senefelder]

They were experts whose job was literally to know those stuffs. The fact that they didn’t know shows a systematic lack of awareness about the presence of women in the real world

[@KitaBFawkes]

@@senefelder To add to this, it also shows there were no women on the team making these decisions.

[@Pystro]

*"But [person X] apologized."* is roughly equivalent to [person X] stealing something, keeping it for half their life, and only when the person they stole it from finds out who has the stolen item do they go "Fine, you can have it back." (Because, let's face it, most of the time a person making a public apology is made to do it by public pressure, not by them actually "realizing that it was wrong".) Would anyone in their right mind then say "But [person X] gave it back. Yeah sure, they kept it for a decade, but in total there's no _real_ harm done here, right?"

[@emilyrln]

This is your first Lego build?? 🥺 my sister and I grew up with Legos! They were probably our favorite activity, tied with sewing little dresses for our dolls lol.

[@joinkusbelinkiusthethird]

Sally Ride was so cool!! I did a short essay on her this past semester, fun assignment. I didn't know alot of this stuff, now I'm depressed :(

[@LewisGraham-l5p]

Valentina Tereshkova, soviet cosmonaut, 1963

[@thegenericguy8309]

it is plainly obvious glenn was just upset that he didnt get first space shit. and honestly that's fair, i'd be upset too. just completely crestfallen to have lost out on that

[@DanielleTinkov]

The ending of this video makes me want to scream and cry at the same time

[@emilejetzer7657]

I hoped the other women astronauts in the class would have proposed a prank make up kit for Ride without NASA realizing.

[@agithamoon2436]

about the tampon defenses: It does sound like a case of "well meaning but ultimately dumb" to me. Like, my clueless boomer dad would probably buy me 100 tampons if I asked him to bring me some from the store. What pisses me off is that so many guys today feel like they have to defend those "well-meaning but (in the case of tampons) dumb" people who asked. They actually spend their time coming up with arguments, why estimating 100 tampons was actually super duper smart of those superior male scientists and how we women folk would never understand why that's actually a genius move. Why can't they admit that it was kinda dumb to ask that, laugh about it, maybe learn from it and move on?? some dude 50 years ago made a blunder and people who weren't even born at that time get butt hurt about it. Why do they take it so personally??

[@Amethyst_Friend]

@@Christian___My god, man, give it up! Go watch the video again.

[@aethelredtheready1739]

Fun quote from a book I read recently: Here’s the thing: Dr. Rhea Seddon, the only combination medical doctor, astronaut, and period-haver in the class of ’78, helped make the decision about how many tampons to include. According to a 2010 interview, the large number of tampons was a safety consideration. As she said, “There was concern about it. It was one of those unknowns. A lot of people predicted retrograde flow of menstrual blood, and it would get out in your abdomen, get peritonitis, and horrible things would happen.” We had to do worst case. Tampons or pads, how many would you use if you had a heavy flow, five days or seven days of flow. Because we didn’t know how it would be different up there. What’s the max that you could use? Most of the women said, “I would never, ever use that many.” “Yes, but somebody else might. You sure don’t want to be worried about do I have enough.”

[@musstakrakish]

How do you dress and feed yourself...

[@dantower8268]

Bummer but not a surprise to learn about John Glen.

[@albin2232]

Love this video. John Glenn was universally disliked by other astronauts.

[@Heyohhowdyhi]

I just found your channel last week, and I have already watched almost all of your videos You are brilliant, funny, and just so freaking interesting! Thank you for all of the work that you put into these videos.

[@MrBeltaine]

I really appreciate your work. Makes my head & heart hurt. ...as it should

[@eVill420]

The educated know incomprehensibly more than 50 years ago, but the uneducated know just the same That's the problem

[@jacco_por]

I (male, 50, NL Europe) love your videos, especially when you talk about social issues /feminism. I like the construct of your arguments and never feel belittled if i don't grasp what you say right away. I've always believed in equality but you make me see that I have latent issues where I thought I was a equal opportunity person. Not huge maybe but just in not thinking about my thought pattern.

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

There was an incident in the 60s where a VC10 airliner, flying from west Africa to London with a dignitary on board, suffered a partial failure of the main cabin door seal. not a safety issue but they couldn't fully pressurise the cabin or climb to cruising height, and it was making horrible noise. to avoid a lengthy delay the flight engineer and cabin crew improvised a solution, which was to take the complimentary tampons from the aircraft bathrooms, soak in water, and pack them into the gap around the door. this sealed the leak nicely and they climbed to cruising altitude and reached London without delay unfortunately they'd not told the welcoming committee about this, who were all lined up to receive the dignitary. as soon as the aircraft stopped, they brought up the stairs and opened the door - to a shower of frozen tampons so y'know maybe all pressurised vehicles should carry 100 tampons for this kind of contingency

[@LemonLadyRecords]

I wrote John Glenn right after his orbital flight, I was 8. We wrote him in my class. I don't think I told him I wanted to do any of that, because I already knew I couldn't, and if you showed any brains at all you couldn't ever get a cool husband to "stand by" and "support". I got a reply, and yes, probably form letter, but it did address something I said, although lots probably asked that question, and he really signed it. I was over the Moon (!) and carried that letter around for a long time. My first celebrity experience! Luckily my mom, very ahead of her time, told me I could do anything I wanted to do. And I did wind up with 2, count 'em, 2 traditionally male occupations. In fact, you could call me a pioneer in one, except nothing's changed from 1976, and it's possibly worse now in that industry. So I actually meant nothing towards opening it to women. Um, the tampon thing was just them being really awful, and "OMG, all the things women need, and fragile, and cramps, and if one dies, and extra toilet design, and tp, and privacy, and alone in space with men, because men can't just control themselves and their reputations, bla bla bla..." . Those NASA guys had wives and girlfriends and kids and sisters, they KNEW about periods. The press usually asked the original candidates about makeup and dumb BS. Few real astronaut questions. When I was young, you weren't supposed to even do sports past puberty, because you wouldn't be able to have kids, women were soooo fragile and their uteruses and ovaries would shrivel and fall out. I loved sports and my dad was brainwashed, and I just fought him so hard. My mom, a highly trained OB/gyn nurse lol, almost an MD, told me not to pay any attention to these men. Yay, Mom! I heard that crap so much, like into the 80s. Always every kind of excuse you could think of to enable men to have meek household slaves to pass on their amazing genes. National propaganda. I played dumb, got a crappy, abusive boyfriend. I stopped playing dumb, dumped him, and got a great one, later my equal husband. I played fun sports, played with the boys, did my careers, and didn't have any kids, so lived my best life, the life *I* wanted, John Glenn be damned. BTW, it wasn't that the USSR was totally worried about having a woman first. I've known women who grew up in the (later) Soviet Union, and women were able to more easily access higher education, free college, any career (the ones I knew were STEM). Of course it was still a leftover misogynist culture, like the entire planet, but equality was a goal, because why not use all your citizens to better your country? Duh. Just think if we'd used 100% of people and not just the 30-40% back then (because you have to subtract the Black people). And if that 60-70% didn't have to claw and fight the world and be treated horribly while trying to do a job... Hmmmm.

[@godofmath1039]

Imagine being racist in 2023. Every time a white woman opens her mouth about race, she always has to say the worst stuff imaginable. You can get your point across without being a bigot, you know

[@godofmath1039]

This is the reason I hate a lot of yt women. Y'all think you're being cute and quirky when you're really just racist

[@godofmath1039]

This is why I have disdain for many yt women. You go too far

[@robertreed7767]

I love your videos. Even the heavy ones. Especially the heavy ones.

[@maxm2639]

I think the explanation for the wild difference between technological progress and political/ethical regression is that medieval thinking never really went away. In my experience many people still believe you can catch cold from being cold. And that if something doesn't happen to the person next to you, It won't happen to you. And that if bad things happen to people, it's because they've been bad and they deserve it. Etc ad nauseam.

[@nigeldepledge3790]

Those last ten minutes were sobering. Some time around the 1990s, I felt like things were moving in the right direction for women in the West. Was I living in blissful ignorance, or have we really gone backwards since then?

[@godofmath1039]

The video is mostly propaganda.

[@Opusss]

Hold up... Wait a minute... Something ain't right... How did you make it all the way to adulthood and a PHD in STEM without ever having built a Lego set!?!? Your next mission, should you choose to accept it is to play Kerbal Space Program and get boots on the Mun.

[@tibbygaycat]

That's what I was thinking!

[@lydiamulfinger]

Oh I would love to see that!!

[@VivekPatel-ze6jy]

Yes we need a ksp stream!

[@jabberwock2517]

+1

[@jcortese3300]

No one answered this question, so I'll take a shot: she's said before that she grew up poor. I also grew up poor to lower working class. Legos were a rich-kid toy. They were and are EXPENSIVE. Poor kids do not get Legos.

I saw maybe half of your videos and I did not see any videos or any mention about the first double Noble laureate ever. Maybe she is not that interesting in the "quantum quantum quantum" ( I love this :) ) physics ?

[@namenloss730]

Did you watch "for all mankind"? Interesting show (except the last season) They talk about the mercury women

[@brindlebucker4741]

This took a turn I wasn't expecting, but it was powerful. And this was 7 months ago when you posted this. Things have gotten crazier since then. Particularly in Florida. Has anyone given any thought to what will happen if DeSantis chooses Marjorie Taylor Greene for his running mate?

[@ChemEDan]

Oh shit. I haven't been paying attention. Guess I need to look at the news 🙄

[@CyberiusT]

"what will happen if DeSantis chooses Marjorie Taylor Greene for his running mate?" If sanity wins out, the GOP suffers a humiliating loss. OTOH, there's history: They win by some stupidly small amount, rule as if they have the biggest majority in the history of the planet, and take the US back to 1940, if not the Inquisition.

[@mariusvanc]

Hi, I'm from the future. Spoiler: absolutely nothing. People always having panic attacks over nothing.

[@anti-christ.666]

If NASA is depending on SpaceX to go to the moon then no one is going to the moon or Mars😂

[@10XBULL]

There are so many topics that you wanted to touch on here.. I would appreciate to hear them. I think we would agree on so many things, and respectfully disagree on many others.. this is not what makes us men and women. This is what makes us human beings.. I enjoy your videos, although I have only recently found them.

[@2Pierre]

Great video, but first ever Lego build ! That's criminal !

[@maxm2639]

Thank you for this video, mainly the infuriating and funny tales of sexism in space (say those last three words with a lot of echo). On sesame Street, it would probably be Sexist Pigs in Space.

[@MC---]

I never put that together but maybe Pigs in Space was a commentary of sexist men in space.

[@Rubbly]

Cool legos and cool topic Except the hellish parts, but i guess thats the world we've created 💀

[@dancinswords]

Obviously they had to nix the 2nd medium-sized suit to make room for all the tampons required

[@Puketapu]

This is a fantastic video. Super interesting and super funny! Love your content

[@Sea0fTime]

Space tampons is such a missed marketing opportunity. Why have I never seen adds for "the official tampon of NASA" or "Zero-B, the first tampon proven to work in any gravity!"

[@hokiturmix]

So this is why I wrote an email to you with this exact name about why you should consider join up with Forrest Valkai

[@scraps7624]

I cannot believe I went through an entire physics undergrad, and yet everything you mentioned on this video was new to me.... I hope this reaches a lot of people, at least then we can try and address all these historical injustices

[@mhansl]

It’s a painful fact for NASA fan boys that the USSR beat us to every first except the moon landing.

[@LewisGraham-l5p]

Apologies, a bit angry so I commented before I watched the full recording

[@KingBobXVI]

The "menstruation vs gravity" thing is just very funny - like, why would it affect women any differently than zero gravity affects mens' organs? Does this person also think pee is stored in the balls, and that men have to wear diapers for when it floats out in zero-g?

[@reynoldsVincent]

This could have been longer. That take you did in another video (I think it was Pluto) on capitalism distorting science journalism in the Daily Mail was relevant. I mean, look at how badly capitalism is distorting AI safety now. Its a big problem, some say it could be existential risk. That effective acceleration ethos is very sus, all that tranhumanism. I recall you did a video on AI, will watch soon. Good work I love your videos!

[@zhenherald]

7:10. "Women became pilots and fought in the war". They became non combat service pilots in north America.

[@zviyeri9117]

north america isn't the only continent in the world dumbass

[@sylviancreedmarsh9171]

Wouldn’t her flow cause her to bleed out over that 6 day period(hah) if 100 tampons were required and used appropriately?

[@spellkowski6996]

this vid certainly took a turn, and I'm a big fan of that +1 more comment

[@kbm2055]

No cosmonauts is not a cooler name than astronauts ;)

[@Trucmuch]

spationauts rule!

[@BjerkeRobin]

The 100 tampons stpry is just so... weirdly charming? Whilst being... like... super problematic? 😂

[@rmcode]

Excellent video? Have you read the Lady Astronaut series? It really does a good of covering sexism in space programmes, also amazing stories.

[@MsRougewarrior]

I am slowly making my way through your videos and its been incredibly sobering hearing your perspective on women in the sciences and in space. The end of this video was a gut punch. Theres always going to be hiccups along the path of progress, but I generally believe that regression and superstition like we see in the abortion banned states are the death throes of a dying way of thinking that will eventually be supplanted by reality. We still need to work towards it and its not a guarantee, but anytime I see these reactionary laws towards formerly accepted things like transgender people, CRT, etc it makes me realize there is a tipping point for these individuals where real fear of the destruction of their backwards ideas are making them lash out in a final bid to keep their old privilege.

[@jbca]

Well that’s depressing as fuck. Damn

[@someone16234]

God I wish I could like videos more than once

[@welcomeblack]

Lol the je-meany missions. Not jem-in-eye missions?

[@yashaouchan]

You are such a nerd! I LOVE IT!

[@PirateRo333]

I don’t think you have to go back that far. I ran into an image of a female astronaut with what appeared to be.a shuttle orange flight suit on, and the caption read, “Women in space, because the sandwiches won’t make themselves.” It was specially prepared for Women’s Day.

[@hazbinhotel5488]

You talk alot of sense, you call out the same things that bother me, you straight up call string theory authors liars, and you are building legos...why can't I meet people like you in real life?

[@TheodoreChin-ih7xz]

Okay this is epic

[@laurasnow7822]

Beautiful video. Actually I guess more upsetting and eye opening than beautiful but still.

[@AbeDillon]

You see: they needed the 100 tampons because when you launch in a rocket it causes high G-forces, which stands for “gravity forces” and gravity goes down. It forces all the blood down there and what’s “down there” for a woman? That’s right: we’re talking about the vagina! So you’ve got your woman riding a rocket to space with all the blood going to her vagina and she’s swapping out tampon after tampon trying to keep it all in. By the time she gets to space she may only have a dozen or so left! /s ps. Oh god! It got dark as hell at the end! We live in Hell :(

[@swanronson173]

"A girl should be two things: who and what she wants." - Coco Chanel.

[@baoboumusic]

If you set up a Patreon, it would be an honor to support you!

[@ChemEDan]

25:55 😥Was this a real event? I can't find information about it.

[@FransLebin]

Not, it's obviously hypothetical. Mostly based on the case of the 10-year-old that had an abortion that was in the news recently.

[@babyoda1973]

Your adhd is showing 😂😊

[@WhatTheFriedRice]

Gut punch but also…..yeah. You described it perfectly with explanation that it seems like we are living in dual worlds

[@joeturpin607]

Love your content. I hope this channel takes off like a rocket for you. It needs to reach the ears of those who need to hear it; both the gate keepers and those left on the other side of the fence for no good reason.

[@acollierastro]

This is really kind, thank you!

[@Amethyst_Friend]

@@acollierastroAnd it came true!

[@Posiman]

I also love the stories Kathy Sullivan says inn Michael Lewis's book The Fifth Risk. Like when NASA engineers were obsessed with creating a universal space bras (in the same way men wear universal space boxers) and she had to carefully explain to them that breasts don't work like that. Or the fact there are two types of astronauts: scientists and military pilots. And the women are usually among the scientists while the pilots are usually these overmasculine macho dudes. And one of them started to talk down to her and even said something in the lines of that she's only there because of political agenda and she told him "Do you understand that this is a science mission? And I'm the scientist. This is all about my work. You're just a glorified cab driver"

[@lickenchicken143]

Most military pilots don't think of themselves as bus drivers, but they are. It's something like 100 to 1 regular scheduled flights to 'combat missions', even in the armed forces. They nevertheless train them and live expecting to do irregular and difficult things under combat stressors, but kinda not expecting to fly back and forth from one airport to the other providing cargo and passenger transport service. Another case of living in two worlds at once. That female scientist doing frontier research, challenging our current understanding of things, including that meat head pilot, was more of the modern warrior spirit than he, IMO. It's tough work to peer in the cracks of research that self declares its work as iron clad. Tough work to get the grants and attention and acceptance required to conduct research into matters the layman would consider solved. She's not defending herself as a female with her statement, she's defending her work. She's not attacking this male pilot, she's attacking his lack of understanding of the purpose of their mission. Warriors attack.

[@HaniaTauqeer-c2k]

Fantastic response

[@muuubiee]

The 100 tampons thing makes sense. There's no way of knowing if she'd give spontaneous birth during those 6 days, in which case the tampons could maybe be helpful.

[@joed180]

You never know when god feels like knocking you up

[@jabberwock2517]

give spontaneous birth ... to an alien, which could in turn have entirely different uses and requirements for tampons. Just in case.

[@HarryS77]

100 tampons? Sure. A suit that fits? Why though?

[@personzorz]

The Russian army is using tampons instead of bandages, they're useful

[@Creationweek]

The us army uses tampons instead of bandages. I always carried a few in my med pack nothing better for packing a bullet wound

[@G5rry]

From now on, every time I hear the name "John Glenn", I will silently say "American Hero" sarcastically.

[@smileyp4535]

john glenn - american "hero"

[@mihailmilev9909]

Lol

[@mihailmilev9909]

35th like

[@mihailmilev9909]

​@@smileyp45351st like

[@ninetales1234]

When he was in Congress, he was asked if he would support a law, that would require every bill proposed in Congress to be accompanied by text that shows what part of the Constitution authorizes them to write such a bill. Glenn said no, because if they were required to do that, nothing would ever get passed!

[@Brendy657]

The same people arguing that "They didn't know how periods work in space" are the same people who think you need gravity to pee 🤣

[@A.F.Whitepigeon]

brb, gonna go hang upside down. Wish me luck.

[@emilyrln]

@@A.F.Whitepigeon how'd it go? 😂

[@kotovnikthegreat]

Would high calcium change the characteristic of human female period? Would 0g change blood supply somehow? Do you know? Before you check - you can't be sure. Assuming everything will be ok is not the way to go in space, I would imagine

[@auberry8613]

@@kotovnikthegreat Do you know how a tampon works lmao

[@thepapschmearmd]

@@kotovnikthegreatso several things here: 1. They were flying missions that lasted hours until they started going to the moon. A normal menstrual cycle comes roughly every 21-35 days. So the ability of a female astronaut to pilot a mission when she’s not on her period is quite easy. 2. Your periods are controlled by hormones. One of the major hormones is estradiol, which is the most potent estrogen in the body and regulates calcium. 3. Calcium levels fluctuate with the menstrual cycle. Women with PMDD and PMS tend to have lower calcium levels and some research has demonstrated that calcium supplementation improved PMS and PMDD symptoms. 4. Women don’t have to have periods. It is generally not dangerous to suppress menstruation. Hormonal birth control was introduced in 1950. While continuous birth control for period suppression was not investigated until the 1970s, if NASA was interested in sending women to space they absolutely could have studied continuous birth control even for just a short time. We know now that it is safe, so they would have figured that out had they been interested. Using menstruation as an excuse to exclude women from space flight is nothing but misogyny.

[@ChemEDan]

She's the first person to ~admit~ to pooping in space.

[@paulsmart4672]

Fucking hero.

[@lostcarpark]

Well, the longest American mission at that point was about 6 hours, so I'm sure they'll have taken all necessary precautions to ensure they wouldn't need to go in orbit. However, there had been several multi day missions on the Soviet side, so there's definitely the possibility.

[@LibertyMonk]

I feel like if your question is "how many tampons do we need for a (less than one month) mission?" the sane ballpark, if you don't want to ask a woman, is whatever happens to be in one box sold at a supermarket.

[@ThatsANova]

That was beautiful. You gave words to feelings I've had for a long time, especially as a trans person. Every time there's a piece of news about trans people, it's a roll of the dice; is my life getting more sucky today, or are people finding humanity within themselves? It feels like especially in this moment, we're experiencing a simultaneous advancement of acceptance and celebration, and advancement of cruelty, and I just have to watch, hoping that we take more steps forward than the people who want us dead do. You're probably not reading these comments anymore, but I appreciate this video, and I hope there's a space for more in the future. I'm loving watching through your videos, they all have such great energy. May Artemis bless us all.

[@unclvinny]

“You can’t even lie?!? To a little girl?!?” This video made me laugh and cry.

[@21cdb]

Every now and then the Navy says “hey, women would be great submariners” for the same reasons about astronauts. Then someone says “but pregnant” and they drop it

[@Cat-tastrophee]

🙄

[@rbaxter286]

How does that work with an all female crew?

[@zarquonmk2]

The algo gave me your vid on string theory, and I've watched them all now, ending on this one! It's been a blast and I hope you keep making them. The 100 tampons story is incredible. You're a great teacher and I've got all this tv to watch but I chose to watch all of these instead because they're so engaging, fun, and interesting. I've been trying to recommend to friends but so far I've had no takers lol, 'I'm watching a really good vid on adjunct professorship, it's like 45 minutes, but if you want.. no? okay', but I'll keep trying :D Also for what it's worth, my ex studied theoretical physics in Dublin, don't remember the exact numbers but by the end year of the course it was around 100 men and less than 5 women. She was top of the class cause she's a badass, but switched fields for her phd. From her stories and yours it seems like physics is such a boy's club.

[@IamdeaththedestroyerofWorlds]

I was doing mechanical engineering there were 3 women for 257 men while all bioengineering fields had more women.

[@G5rry]

The tampons thing is so hilarious. If you haven’t found this channel, you my like the Vintage Space channel. She tells a lot of history of the Space Race, but also has several videos about lesser known (but totally awesome) female aviators - and wrote a book about them. She’s one of my favourite channels.

[@acollierastro]

I’ll check it out, thanks for the rec!

[@aethelredtheready1739]

Ok but on the nerdie birdies argument. Yes? There are men like that around today? When that story was related to my class once a guy legitimately asked what was wrong with that. It’s still a bit of a taboo subject and like sure with a moment of thought you can realize like, ya it’s obviously too many, these guys clearly didn’t. So they asked the person most qualified to tell them.

[@justteathankyou.3642]

​@@aethelredtheready1739 It's indicative of men's ignorance for women's health. A grown man asking such naive question is a bit different from your classmate asking that question. (I'm assuming your classmate was relatively young)

[@gweltazlemartret6760]

@@justteathankyou.3642 One don't always seek answer to questions they're not confronted to.

[@haselni]

​@@gweltazlemartret6760 See, I think the issue here, the disconnect between the people talking about it is that there's a group that defends the engineers in question by saying "these taboos, this ignorance is very normal, a lot of people have that". And there's another group that says "these taboos, this ignorance is not only ridiculous, but also some real trouble for society". And all the first group hears when listening to the second group is an attack on the engineers, for some reason?

[@nigeldepledge3790]

From what I've read, there was significant resistance to Valentina Tereshkova (yes, you got her name right, BTW) becoming a cosmonaut. Chief Designer Sergei Korolev in particular was opposed to the idea. He thought it was just a publicity stunt. Tereshkova fought tooth and claw to be seen as the right candidate; but it still took a nudge from the political higher-ups to get her accepted into the programme. In a way, Tereshkova was accepted not because she made the grade (but she definitely had made the grade!) but because she was viewed as a propaganda instrument. Unfortunately, Tereshkova's flight in June 1963 aboard Vostok 6 did not quite go according to plan. She was supposed to have "close encounters" with the Vostok 5 capsule carrying Valery Bukovsky; but his capsule ended up in a lower orbit than intended due to a minor technical glitch with the rocket. Also, Tereshkova suffered terrible space sickness. She tried to hide this from the ground controllers, but ended up not following procedures in her radio communications. Korolev assumed that it was because she was simply forgetting all the procedures, and thus vindicating his opposition to her inclusion in the space programme. Perhaps illustrating the widespread attitude about women in space, the Soviet Union did not send another woman into space until 1982, when Svetlana Savitskaya became the second woman to fly into orbit. Two years later, during her second spaceflight, Savitskaya became the first woman to carry out an EVA.

[@victorbukhaltsev9010]

And Tereshkova publicly suggested to reset presidental terms of Putin during Constitution change, so he can stay as president. She is like evil villain hated by humanic part of russian society.

[@camipco]

The history of women's rights in the Soviet Union is pretty fascinating. On the one hand, one of the claims made by communists going back to Marx and Engels is that communism will be more gender-equal than capitalism and women were legally given equal rights with the founding of the country in 1917, almost 50 years before the US. One of the propaganda strategies of the Soviets was to demonstrate they were more socially progressive than the US, and in lots of ways this wasn't just propaganda, they actually were often on the right side (opposing apartheid, for just one example). And on top of that, women had been even more essential in the Soviet military in WWII than in the West, especially in the Air Force, and had been publicly recognized and high decorated. On the other hand, there's no shortage of misogyny in Russian culture, no least among the powerful men who ran the thing.

[@KitaBFawkes]

@@camipco It is interesting to learn about how vocal the USSR was against Apartheid, whilst also at the same time engaging in pretty wild systemic racism and violence against non-Russians in their own territory. Very much a "for me, not for thee" mentality... like a lot of things the USSR did, it was a performative gesture to the international public that did not reflect the reality of what went on inside their state borders.

[@oiytd5wugho]

@@camipco tbf a lot of the new states that were founded as a result of WW1, including the Soviet Union had equal political rights. An event where you have to write a new constitution is conducive of making changes and women's suffrage was a widespread movement across europe by that point. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Austria, USSR, etc. etc. all had equal political/voting rights with their founding, they were new states. Meanwhile, the countries that didn't experience much change: France, Switzerland, UK etc. needed 10-80 more years. ALL those countries were and still are misogynistic and patriarchal whether women had rights or not. It's not that Russia was more progressive socially or were only enacting rights as a diplomatic boast, it's the circumstances - a state enjoying their geographic safety and spoils of war vs. a literal revolution

[@mongolianstallion8274]

The term pre-pregnant woman is like calling women incubators

[@hc6157]

I’m obsessed with your content format(s) and the depth of conversation here. As a young grad student I want to have this depth of transparency with the other women in my own field.

[@willoliver9960]

I know it isn’t the main focus of the channel but I’d love to hear more of your political takes. I’m not American but I’m aware of and deeply concerned by recent political developments in your country. I hadn’t even considered that terminating a non-viable (ectopic, etc.) pregnancy would be considered “abortion” under state law. Truly horrifying. It can’t even be argued as a “pro-life” position as the only likely result is the death of both woman and fetus without intervention

[@bobbirdsong6825]

see it's really frustrating. americans overwhelmingly hold certain opinions collectively, like that abortion should be legal, but our political system allows corruption by default so things like this become hot button topics

[@julianbell9161]

Due to how states rights work in the US, how fucked you are very much depends on which state you live. I live in California, and we voted to write abortion rights into our state constitution. America is like multiple countries in one, it really depends on where you live

[@Lerithan]

“Do you know how dangerous childbirth is for children?” Is not an answer I’d like to ever have to know.

[@WilliamRoyNelson]

I've got a hot take on the 100 tampons thing. Hot take alert! Short version: I think when it comes to personal, sensitive issues involving a woman's health and body, there's one obvious choice on who the #1 expert and authority is: the woman. It's fine to laugh about it afterwards, but as a general rule, if you're in a position where you have to make an important decision that affects the health and safety of someone else, it's better to ask a stupid question, even if it reveals that you're incredibly ignorant of the subject. Longer version: In the year 2023, men generally are pretty ignorant about menstruation, and they tend to be squeamish and sensitive about the subject. I can't imagine that things were better 40 years ago. I think it would show exceptional insight and self-reflection for an engineer of that era to say "I'm pretty sure I know the right answer, but maybe I've been been wildly misinformed by authoritative voices that don't see women as full human beings." Asking is the right thing to do. Presumably spouses, siblings or parents may have been asked. If they talked to someone who took the question very seriously, they'd probably get an answer like "Well, it depends, how heavy are her periods?" The clear next step: Ask. This next part might seem like a stretch, but there's two ways to approach the question. The first way is to say "We're starting with a baseline of zero tampons. How many more than zero do you need?" And that's a crappy question to ask. Everyone involved knows that weight is important, and how awful would it be to have a discussion of "Do you really need 8? What if we did 4?" But a different approach is to start way too high. "Hey Sally, we're trying to find some places to cut weight, and we have 100 tampons on the list. Is that the right number?" As long as the actual number needed isn't above 100, then it's easy. Everyone gets back to work and a lot of potentially awkward conversations gets skipped. Finally, and this really isn't that important, but I remember seeing the movie Apollo 13 as a kid, and a big part of the mission's success revolved around the astronauts building a contraption to make an emergency repair. I don't know if tampons would have helped in that scenario, but when it comes to household objects that could be really useful in the hands of very smart people trying to improvise, tampons are probably in S tier. And in zero G, where liquids can be a huge problem, yes please! They're around a gram each, no clue how much volume if vacuum packed, but it can't be much. It's probably a good idea to pack a few even on an all-male mission. Anyways, I said the important part in the short version. The stupid outcome would have been for the engineers to not ask an embarrassing question and Sally gets to space and finds either zero tampons, or she opens a locker in the bathroom and 20,000 tampons float out. To recap: If you're in a position where a woman's health depends on making the right decision, it's a really good idea to involve the woman in the decision.

[@thepapschmearmd]

So the problem is that men are “squeamish” and “uncomfortable” about a completely natural part of everyday life for half the population. Am I glad they asked? Yes. That’s great that they asked rather than sent up zero. But the fact that they had zero clue how many tampons the average woman needs for one menstrual cycle is indicative of the larger problem, which is that men don’t know and don’t want to know how women’s bodies work. That mindset is why we have lawmakers asking if women can swallow a pill to look inside the uterus, saying that women can control if sperm goes into their uterus if they are raped, and that they are too dumb to understand pregnancy while simultaneously passing laws to control it.

[@silly9434]

Involving a woman in the decision could also have been asking a woman "hey, how many tampons do you need for 6 days?"

[@KitaBFawkes]

In our opinion, it highlights a larger issue... If there had been a woman on the team, she could have had that discussion with Sally, and gone back to them with a hard number. If there had been a woman on the team, she would have had a more reasonable/less patently ridiculous estimation. If there had been a woman on the team making this decision... this anecdote would not exist.

[@WilliamRoyNelson]

@@KitaBFawkes I think you're absolutely right. I work in tech, and occasionally I have to deal with the remnants of very bad naming decisions for technical terms (master/slave is the big one.) I feel like that name would have got caught very early in the process if a few Black people had been involved in the naming decision.

[@KitaBFawkes]

@@WilliamRoyNelson And this is ultimately why representation is important. If you aren't inclusive, you *will* make decisions that harm people not included... Not even out of spite or hate, often just plain ignorance and lack of care.

[@ast453000]

we need to rebrand pro-choice. it should be pro-women's-health. sick lego build btw

[@VivekPatel-ze6jy]

pro not dying from ectopic pregnancy the way it's going in some states

[@thepapschmearmd]

Pro-women’s health is good. Goes nicely when you use forced birth instead of pro-life.

[@omfgacceptmyname]

i use "pro-autonomy" myself. the argument i saw was that forcing women to give birth is equivalent to forcing someone to give blood, or an organ... or, incidentally, to get a vaccine. my body my choice?

[@PajamaSam18]

I know this is so not the point of this video, but I’ve gotta say I’m shocked they don’t send astronauts up to space each with a space suit specifically tailored to them, like it seems like they’re just like ‘Oh yeah, grab a medium off the rack and throw it on there for the ladies’

[@garanceadrosehn9691]

Even if men didn't feel comfortable asking their wives or daughters about tampons, I'd think that at least a few would notice that they are not buying hundreds of tampons per month when they go to the store. That'd be thousands per year per old-enough-woman who lives in the house. I'd think that would show up as a notable expense in the household budget. I'll personally disagree with one comment: I personally do not believe we will have a successful manned mission to Mars even by 2050. I don't mean that as a "male vs female" thing, I mean that I think the technical challenges are too great, and that the political will (or perhaps "cultural will") is too small.

[@KarimElHayawan]

This is a nice video and all but it's not about Women in space, it's about _American_ women in space. Americans are not a stand in for the rest of humanity.

[@wilhelmederveen9265]

What do you mean? What rest? 😉

[@KarimElHayawan]

@Oren Elbaum A distinction without a difference.

[@omfgacceptmyname]

it's actually stupid how uselessly annoying you are.

[@Jelissei]

You made me laugh so hard... and then brought me to tears... well done!

[@scientificreactions7938]

omg - first ever lego build 😮. As for the height requirement, I think you're right about the height & payload aspect, but there's another aspect... a friend of mine who considered pursuing being a fighter jet pilot said that height also plays into your ability to handle extreme g-forces. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but he said, basically, that under extreme g's blacking out is common due to your blood pooling in certain parts of the body and not others, and taller people are more susceptible to this. In other words, being short is helpful for such jobs! Another interesting point is that in the book "Starship Troopers" written in 1959 by Robert Heinlein, 100% of the spaceship pilots are women. I wonder if he was using data to support this idea or just telling stories....

[@acollierastro]

I hadn't noticed that in Starship Troopers that is really cool!

[@SuperNovaJinckUFO]

There's also the fact that if you were too tall you simply wouldn't even fit in the capsule. You ever see how small the mercury capsules were?

[@couchpotatoe91]

I mean, just from a cargo perspective having to feed a small person instead of a big one is a lot better. If one has 120 pounds and another has 160 pounds that's a huge difference not only in size but also in terms of food supplies.

[@avialexander]

​@@couchpotatoe91 It ripples even further down than that. They would drink less water, meaning the ship could have smaller recycling equipment. They breathe less air, meaning oxygen tanks can be smaller. Think of the tyranny of the rocket equation on all life support systems, and then we could just downsize them by 20-30%?! That's a very significant amount of savings.

[@AHumanBeingNamedAlex]

21:28 “hopefully in 2024 there will be women on the moon” I let out the most sarcastic laugh imaginable

[@paulschlusser1085]

I think the phrase is "it aged like milk". ;-)

[@livingmasquerade1418]

@@paulschlusser1085 why so?

[@paulschlusser1085]

@@livingmasquerade1418 because “aged like milk” was a theme in another of Angela’s videos. That, and the fact that it’s late 2024 and… starliner, SLS, latest GAO report on Artemis, Collins pulling out of space suit contract… etc etc etc.

[@livingmasquerade1418]

@@paulschlusser1085 so theres so much going bad things going on with the space efforts that were not going to the moon at all, am i correct? if so thats depressing...

[@paulschlusser1085]

@@livingmasquerade1418 I think we can safely say that NASA isn't quite performing at the level it was during Apollo... but let's not get into why that is. Because that's a WHOLE other topic!

[@thecloofer1255]

The tone of this video took an incredibly brutal and completely earned and necessary tone. It's a shame that the people who need to hear it most, never will. Thanks for all he awesome content. I've been binge watching your channel since I found it.

[@arlenestanton9955]

Men 5’5-6-etc, would restrict the candidate pool too much. Not taller than 5”11 is the upper limit, but the shorter (smaller) the better.

[@bobysze]

I guess it would restrict the candidate pool to mostly women. Which would sound unfair, but to be perfectly honest: Since much of the payload directly depends on the physical size of the astronauts like clothing, space suits, water (and water treatment), food, the physical space for the astronauts, lunar module etc. it might actually not be a bad idea to go for women (or small men) in general. And if you go for 100 pound women instead of 200 pound men, you might even get an extra person on the moon for free. So instead of 2 pilots and 2 specialists (like with Artemis 2), you could fit 2 pilots and 3 specialists doing 50 % more scientific work.

[@WilliamRoyNelson]

I know that "lol" is often used hyperbolically, but the "we did it" joke at 10:10 absolutely killed me.

[@thebitterartist]

I do not have anything witty to say, but I would like to let you know that I really appreciate the videos you create.

[@notstampgoat]

God damn, your video's ar always a delight but that ending was absolutely surreal. I have never thought about it in the way you put it despite me already have been critical of capitalism before. Absolutely incredible stuff, as always!

[@definitelynotcole]

This was a great one. The story telling is spot on.

[@Wyattporter]

“Pre-pregnant women” is an absolutely chilling turn of phrase. This video had the air of being rather off-the-cuff (especially given your remark about wanting to talk about capitalism’s relationship to this issue) but I found the “storytelling” throughout to be *extremely* powerful. The symbol of Artemis was really well-executed. Thank you.

[@misslayer999]

Why the fuck didn't they just ask Sally Ride herself about the tampons? I guess because they asked her about the makeup and then completely ignored what she said...after all they know better than her about what she needs. Ugh😡 I feel the exact same way about everything you said. It feels horrible and everytime i think about it, I start getting depressed. I'm not considered a person in the state that I currently live in. I don't know what to do. I'm leaving after I finish my degree, but it'll be a few years...and that won't fix the problem for anyone else. It's beyond disgusting how we're being treated and frankly it really makes me hate this country.

[@am14a]

A few notes: 1. The first space mission with a woman was conducted by the USSR, not Russia. It's important to highlight that Russia is not synonymous with all the countries that were part of the USSR. 2. Valentina Tereshkova has supported the annexation of Crimea and the Russia waging wars in Syria and Ukraine, which is shameful and reprehensible.

[@victorm3054]

24:02 You are faking legos. I knew it all along. You ain't got no three hands girl. I thought you are creating a little island of truth, but no, its fake

[@MrJohnS.]

I’d really like to see your take on how every other country treats men differently from women.