By Marcia Dunn ASSOCIATED PRESS
LIVINGSTON – The world’s first
all-female spacewalking team made history high above Earth on Oct. 18,
replacing a broken part of the International Space Station’s power grid.
As NASA astronauts and close
friends Christina Koch, from Livingston, Montana, and Jessica Meir
successfully completed the job with wrenches, screwdrivers and power-grip
tools, it marked the first time in a half-century of spacewalking that men
weren’t part of the action. They insisted they were just doing their job after
years of training, following in the footsteps of women who paved the way.
Spacewalking is widely considered
the most dangerous assignment in orbit. Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, who
operated the station’s robot arm from inside during Friday’s spacewalk, almost
drowned in 2013 when his helmet flooded with water from his suit’s cooling
system.
Meir, a marine biologist making
her spacewalking debut, became the 228th person in the world to conduct a
spacewalk and the 15th woman. It was the fourth spacewalk for Koch, an
electrical engineer who is seven months into an 11-month mission that will be
the longest ever by a woman. Both are members of NASA’s Astronaut Class of
2013, the only one equally split between women and men.
