NASA has cancelled its plans for an all-female spacewalk due to a lack of spacesuits that fit women astronauts. While Friday’s much-anticipated spacewalk will still take place, one of the two women scheduled for the journey, Anne C. McClain, will have to stay back. A man will accompany astronaut Christina H. Koch in her place. Both McClain and Koch required medium spacesuit torso sections, and there is currently only one that is properly configured at the International Space Station, NASA said in a statement on Monday. Hillary Clinton was one of many people who had been looking forward to the historic mission and took to Twitter to voice disappointment at NASA’s announcement, writing “make another suit.” The March for Science posted that the decision was “incredible disappointing.” After some of the response, the agency clarified its reasoning on Twitter, explaining that it has more than one medium suit onboard — there just wasn’t enough time to fit and adjust that piece ahead of Friday’s spacewalk. McClain went on a spacewalk in this series on March 22, also with Nick Hague, the astronaut who will join Koch in Friday’s mission. It was during that spacewalk that she realized she preferred wearing the medium size torso, rather than the large one that she was originally slated to wear, Stephanie Schierholz, a spokesperson for NASA, said on Twitter. “When you have the option of just switching the people, the mission becomes more important than a cool milestone,” Schierholz told the New York Times on Monday. Get The Brief. Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. Please enter a valid email address. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. Please attempt to sign up again. Sign Up Now An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. Please try again later. Check the box if you do not wish to receive promotional offers via email from TIME. You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder. Write to Rachel E. Greenspan at rachel.greenspan@time.com.<doc-sep>Nasa’s plans for the first all-female spacewalk have fallen through – at least in part because the agency doesn’t have enough spacesuits that fit the astronauts. What should have been a giant leap for womankind has turned into a stumble after Nasa said on Monday night that they will only have access to one correctly sized spacesuit top by Friday when the walk was scheduled. One of the two women on the mission, Anne McClain, will now have to give up her place to a male colleague. She thought a large-sized suit would be fine but after a spacewalk last week found that the medium-sized was a better fit and would be the most appropriate suit to wear to venture back outside the International Space Station. “Anne trained in ‘M’ and ‘L’ and thought she could use a large but decided after [last] Friday’s spacewalk a medium fits better,” a Nasa spokeswoman, Stephanie Schierholz, announced on Monday. “In this case, it’s easier (and faster!) to change space-walkers than reconfigure the spacesuit.” The news was met with disappointment and some anger by many following the much-anticipated mission on social media, with some arguing an all-female spacewalk was overdue. Others said they were sad that a milestone moment on women’s space exploration had been deferred, but safety came first. “I’m suuper [sic] disappointed about the all-woman spacewalk not happening as scheduled this Friday but I’m also super supportive of astronauts having the authority to say ‘I would be safer using a different piece of equipment,’” Emily Lakdawalla, a senior editor at the US non-profit the Planetary Society, wrote on Twitter. “An all-woman spacewalk WILL eventually happen.” Early this month, Nasa announced that Christina Koch and Anne McClain would take part in the first-of-its kind mission on 29 March, walking outside the international space station (ISS) to install new batteries. In the past, missions have been all-male or male-female. But in a press release on Monday, Nasa said its plans had changed, “in part” due to a shortage of outerwear. McClain had “learned during her first spacewalk that a medium-size hard upper torso – essentially the shirt of the spacesuit – fits her best.” Only one such top can be made by Friday, the agency said, and it will go to Koch. When McClain took part in a spacewalk last week, she became the 13th woman to do so, Nasa says; Koch will be the 14th. McClain is now “tentatively scheduled” to perform her next one on 8 April. Some more shots of the #spacewalk on Friday – was privileged to work with my friend and colleague @NASA_Astronauts @AstroHague pic.twitter.com/KueUo7HXFm — Anne McClain (@AstroAnnimal) March 25, 2019 McClain is sharing both spacewalk missions with men. The first woman to perform a spacewalk was the Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya, 35 years ago. More than 500 people have been into space, but only 11% have been women. But Koch and McClain were both part of Nasa’s 2013 class, which was 50% female. Fitting for spacesuits is a tricky business, according to Space.com, since microgravity makes you taller. McClain tweeted this month that she was 2in taller than when she launched.<doc-sep>
The problem: One medium-sized spacesuit. Two medium-sized astronauts. Space Sub The first all-female spacewalk will have to wait. Earlier this month, NASA confirmed that an International Space Station spacewalk scheduled for March 29 would be the first to feature only female astronauts. But on Monday, the agency announced that male astronaut Nick Hague would be joining Christina Koch for the spacewalk in place of Anne McClain — though that doesn’t mean the first all-female spacewalk won’t happen in the near future. Suit Up The decision to replace McClain was due to an equipment issue: she and Koch both wear size medium spacesuits and only one of those is available for Friday’s spacewalk. This wasn’t a matter of NASA losing track of its inventory — it just didn’t know that McClain would require a medium-sized hard upper torso (essentially the “shirt” part of a spacesuit) until March 22, when she participated in a spacewalk wearing a large-sized torso and found that a medium would be a better fit. Temporary Delay NASA spokesperson Stephanie Schierholz told The New York Times that there are actually two medium-sized torsos already on board the space station. However, only one is properly configured for a spacewalk, and configuring the other would take hours of crew labor. The easiest solution, the agency concluded, was to have Koch complete Friday’s scheduled spacewalk with Hague. Still, Schierholz is fairly certain that an all-female spacewalk is destined for the near future given the increasing number of women astronauts. “We’re sort of getting to the point of inevitability,” she told the Times. READ MORE: First All-Female Spacewalk Canceled Because NASA Doesn’t Have Two Suits That Fit [The New York Times] More on spacewalks: NASA Announces World’s First All-Female Spacewalk As a Futurism reader, we invite you join the Singularity Global Community, our parent company’s forum to discuss futuristic science & technology with like-minded people from all over the world. It’s free to join, sign up now!