Welcome to the Crowdsourcing Mornings segment! Every weekday morning, Geek Alabama talks about and features one crowdsourcing project from crowdsourcing sites such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and others. The hope with Crowdsourcing Mornings is to feature and help a project be successful and reach its fundraising goal. Please enjoy today’s featured project!
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60 years and 600 humans in space later, and still, only 11% of those space fliers have been women. At first glance, this number seems surprisingly low – but look a little closer and we find that human spaceflight has been one of the most progressive industries when it comes to gender inclusion. Using NASA astronauts as an example — the current corps of NASA astronauts is 40% female; and so far, in 2022 alone, 50% of the NASA astronaut crewmembers supporting International Space Station (ISS) missions have been women; with more to come. And this number doesn’t include the women flying on private spaceflights, like those with companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic, which since 2021 has included 24% female crewmembers.
WHY DO WE NEED A SPACESUIT DESIGNED FOR WOMEN?
To date though, and for many important reasons, the spacesuits that have been designed and built for astronauts have been done so to a generic yet inclusive set of requirements in order to satisfy the operational and wide range of sizing needs associated with both male and female astronauts alike.
It’s exciting times as access to space is continuing to open up to more and more space fliers from more and more diverse backgrounds. In the not-too-distant future we will have humans (not just professional astronauts, but private astronauts and space tourists) not just orbiting our planet in low Earth orbit on space stations, but establishing a permanent presence on the Moon, and on Mars!
On June 7, 2019, NASA announced a new directive that opened the International Space Station for commercial use. This opened up so many opportunities for commercial companies to manufacture goods in space, build space vehicles, platforms, and habitats (did someone mention space hotels), as well as stimulate space tourism and encourage private astronauts!
Human spaceflight has definitely been making space for women – now we need to keep up that momentum and continue to encourage more young girls to seek out the opportunities that exist in the world of space exploration, both on and off our planet. Through the integration of art, fashion, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) the GIRL IN SPACE CLUB™ (GISC) is inspiring more girls to become tomorrow’s innovators – to envision themselves as astronauts, scientists, and space travelers of the future.
What could be more inspiring for a young girl than envisioning her future travel in space in a spacesuit made just for her?!
As of November 18th, this project has raised $68,000 of their $75,000 goal. This project has 4 days left to raise the $75,000 or it will not be funded. For a pledge of $15, you will get one patch. For a pledge of $50, you will get one t-shirt. To learn more and to pledge money, go to: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/girlinspaceclub/bring-to-life-the-first-womens-space-travel-suit?
Categories: Crowdsourcing Mornings Stuff
