To answer these questions, it helps to start at the beginning. Not the Big Bang—we’ll save that for another day—but the 1960s, when NASA first started launching astronauts to space. Read: 5,200 days in space Back then, women weren’t wearing space suits; they were making them. The Apollo space suits were manufactured by the International Latex Corporation, the maker of Playtex bras and girdles. Seamstresses went from sewing undergarments to stitching together thin layers of high-tech fabric on their noisy Singer sewing machines. The space suits were custom-made for individual astronauts, all of whom were men. After astronauts planted the American flag on the moon, NASA turned its focus toward the next phase in space travel, the space-shuttle program. The shuttles were designed for a future of frequent flights to and from the space above Earth, with more astronauts than ever before. Tailoring custom space suits for so many passengers would be too expensive and time-consuming. So in the 1970s, NASA took a Mr. Potato Head approach and developed pieces for arms, legs, and torsos that astronauts, from the smallest women to the largest men, could mix and match. The spacewalking suits—known as extravehicular mobility units, or EMUs—came in five sizes: extra small, small, medium, large, and extra large. Space-suit engineers thought that outfitting the new space travelers would be simple. “Some groups initially assumed that women could fit in the same sizes as small men—or at worst, that some of the men’s sizes would have to be scaled down proportionately to fit women,” Elizabeth Benson, a NASA design engineer, wrote in a 2009 paper on sizing considerations in space-suit design. This approach doesn’t account for differences in the body shape of men and women. “For the same height and weight, women can have significantly wider hips and narrower shoulders than men,” Benson wrote. “If, for example, a one-piece coverall designed for a man is meant to fit at the shoulders and the hips, then one of these fit areas is likely to be compromised for a woman.” Extra room can actually make space walks more difficult. “As a woman, doing space walks is more challenging mostly because the suits are sized bigger than the average female,” Peggy Whitson, a NASA astronaut who helped build the ISS and who holds the American record for time spent in space, said in a recent documentary interview. And Whitson would know: She also holds the record for the most space walks for a female astronaut, 10. In the 1990s, several years after the first American women flew to space, budget cuts forced NASA to trim its space-suit program. Extra small was the first to go, and small followed soon after. Most astronauts fit into the mediums and larges, but not all. “People my size are in fourth grade. Literally, I mean, some fourth graders are bigger than me,” Nancy Currie, a NASA astronaut who is 5 feet tall, told NPR in a 2006 interview.<doc-sep>A mural of George Floyd is shown in the intersection of 38th St & Chicago Ave on March 31, 2021 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Community members continue preparations during the third day in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is charged with multiple counts of murder in the death of George Floyd. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 01: President Donald Trump's lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani talks to journalists outside the White House West Wing July 01, 2020 in Washington, DC. Giuliani did an on-camera interview with One America News Network's Chanel Rion before talking to other journalists about Vice President Joe Biden and the news that Russian intelligence may have paid Taliban operatives to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) ORLANDO, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 28: Former President Donald Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference held in the Hyatt Regency on February 28, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Begun in 1974, CPAC brings together conservative organizations, activists, and world leaders to discuss issues important to them. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 09: People walk past the Trump Tower as the impeachment trial of Donald Trump begins in Washington on February 09, 2021 in New York City. After listening to nearly four hours of legal arguments, the Senate has voted on Tuesday to move ahead with the impeachment trial of former President Trump. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 20: U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the conflict in the Middle East from Cross- Hall of the White House on May 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. Israel and Hamas announced that they would agree to a cease-fire, which will take into effect on Friday, following days of fighting that claimed more than 200 lives. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) SAN JOSE, CA - MAY 26: A view of the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) light-rail yard where a mass shooting occurred on May 26, 2021 in San Jose, California. A VTA employee opened fire at the yard, with preliminary reports indicating nine people dead including the gunman. (Photo by Philip Pacheco/Getty Images) A healthcare worker prepares to administer a Pfizer/BioNTEch coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine at The Michener Institute, in Toronto, Ontario on December 14, 2020. - Ontario, Canada's most populous province and one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, had 1,940 new cases and 23 deaths on Monday. The province is expected to give its next doses to nursing home workers as a priority, according to media reports. (Photo by CARLOS OSORIO / POOL / AFP) (Photo by CARLOS OSORIO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) (CNN) — NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch were set to make some history at the end of this week with the first all-female spacewalk. But the moment was put on hold – Koch will now do the spacewalk Friday with a male astronaut – because there weren’t enough spacesuits at the International Space Station that fit the two women. NASA’s budget is $21.5 billion. Um, what exactly is going on up there? For an explanation, we talked to two folks from NASA’s public affairs office: Brandi Dean (via email) and Stephanie Schierholz (by phone). Their answers have been edited for length. CNN: Why weren’t there enough spacesuits that fit? Brandi Dean: We do our best to anticipate the spacesuit sizes that each astronaut will need, based on the spacesuit size they wore in training on the ground, and in some cases (including Anne McClain’s) astronauts train in multiple sizes. However, individuals’ sizing needs may change when they are on orbit, in response to the changes living in microgravity can bring about in a body. In addition, no one training environment can fully simulate performing a spacewalk in microgravity, and an individual may find that their sizing preferences change in space. This is all fascinating. So body sizes change in space? Stephanie Schierholz: When you’re in space, your body changes because of the lack of gravity, right? So if you’re standing on Earth, gravity is pulling you down. The two most notable changes are fluid shifts in your body and most people’s spine tends to elongate. And that just creates conditions where your body behaves differently in space. So combine that then with spacewalking and training for spacewalks. [Part of the astronauts’ training is at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab near the Johnson Space Center in Texas, which is essentially a giant swimming pool.] When they’re in the neutral buoyancy lab they’re in a suit that’s pretty similar to the suit that they’d wear in space, but obviously there’s some changes made since you’re in water. And that’s the best analog we have … astronauts can have a situation in which they have a different experience when they’re actually in space than they do when they’re in the pool. And so Ann (McClain) had trained in both a medium- and a large-torso spacesuit and thought that she was fine in either one. But when she actually got out in space wearing a spacesuit – she was wearing a medium last Friday – then she … really felt like that she should still be in a medium for future spacewalks. A large would be too big. Dean: We have two medium hard upper torsos in space, two larges and two extra larges. However, one of the mediums and one of the extra larges are spares that would require additional time for configuration. Schierholz: You don’t want the astronauts fighting against their spacesuit … because it’s already a physically demanding task to put them in a spacesuit and have them do work in it. And the suit itself is pressurized when they’re in space, so they’re already to some degree fighting against the spacesuit. You want it to be as optimally fitted as possible. So the feedback from Anne was that she felt she should really be in a medium suit. There’s another medium torso but it’s not currently configured into a spacesuit. So it’s easier to swap out the spacewalkers than to swap out parts of the spacesuit. It also helps them keep the schedule. If they reconfigure the suit, that would take significantly more time. They wouldn’t be able to do the spacewalk by Friday. And they want to do the spacewalk Friday because they have another spacewalk coming up April 8 and then there’s a rocket launch that’s bringing cargo to the space station on April 17. So they have all of these things sort of lining up that are keeping them busy. Yeah, I can imagine. Schierholz: It’s like if you have to reschedule an appointment, right? And you’re like, ‘Oh crap, where did that go? It doesn’t fit in the schedule anymore.’ We all can relate to that. Schierholz: (Laughs) How much does the body change in microgravity? Schierholz: Most astronauts will gain up to two inches in length when their spine elongates. But it’s different for every astronaut. And it’s completely based on the lack of gravity, so the minute that they get back into a gravity environment they go back to a more compressed spine. And some astronauts report that they know that they’re longer but they don’t really feel any difference and others report, you know, they feel different as a result. Tell me more about the spacesuits. Schierholz: I’m pretty sure that they’re the spacesuits we had for the shuttle program, too. I know that they’re suits we’ve had a long time. And there aren’t a lot of them and that they were made to be modular so that you can configure them to be the right shape and size for as many astronauts as possible. Anything you’d like to add before I let you go? Schierholz: I think it’s just inevitable that there will be an all-female spacewalk. It just won’t be this Friday.<doc-sep>NASA’s last-minute decision to cancel what would have been an historic all-female spacewalk triggered a swift and sardonic reaction on social media — and cast a harsh spotlight on a problem that has long bedeviled the space agency: It doesn’t have enough spacesuits. Astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch were scheduled to venture outside the International Space Station together Friday to swap out some batteries. But NASA announced Monday that, after consulting with McClain, mission managers had decided to shift the assignments “due in part to spacesuit availability on the station.” McClain learned during a previous spacewalk that a medium-sized “hard upper torso” — the part of the modular suits that covers the chest — fit her best, the agency said. But only one of those could be made ready to be worn on the station by Friday. NASA said it would be worn by Koch. The decision drew an immediate response on Twitter, with some apparently seeing the cancellation as evidence that women still aren’t full participants in the space program more than three decades after Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. "NASA= No Available Spacesuit Accessories,” archaeologist Sarah Parcak quipped in a tweet. “We put a man on the moon but we can’t find a spacesuit that fits a woman by Friday,” tweeted Arianna Huffington. Hillary Clinton tweeted simply, “Make another suit.” Beyond the issue of possible sexism within the space program, experts said the canceled walk illustrates NASA’s shortage of spacesuits — a problem that was described in detail in a 2017 inspector general report. “On the International Space Station, there are just four spacesuits available out of a total of just 11 spacesuits that NASA has in total for the ISS,” said spacesuit expert Pablo de Leon, a professor of space studies at the University of North Dakota. “This is due to the fact that the spacesuits that are now used are the same ones that were used during the space shuttle program.” NASA’s space shuttles first flew in 1981 and were retired in 2011 — and de Leon said the suits had been designed in the late 1970s. The agency had planned to make new spacesuits for astronauts to wear on spacewalks from the space station but funding was never allocated, according to de Leon. The suits are much more than airtight coveralls with helmets and gloves. They’ve been described as miniature spaceships, capable of enabling astronauts to move around comfortably while protecting them from temperature extremes and the airless vacuum of space. They weigh more than 150 kilograms apiece (about 331 pounds), de Leon said, and their cost is as astronomical as the environment in which they’re worn. “If you could put a price tag on each suit, it is $22 million,” he said. Developing and fabricating additional suits for use on the space station would take several years, he added, so doing so might not make sense since the station itself will probably be retired in 2024. McClain is now tentatively scheduled to perform a spacewalk with Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques on April 8. NASA didn't specify the other factors that contributed to the decision to alter the spacewalk schedule and didn't reply to an email requesting more information in time to be included in this article. Former NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff, who is now a professor of aerospace engineering at Texas A&M University, said in an email that NASA had "painted itself into a corner by all the public announcements about the two-female EVA," or extravehicular activity. He said the agency "probably should have delayed the spacewalk" to prepare the other suit. "Obviously, the work took priority over the accomplishment of a two-female EVA and now NASA has to endure the public backlash instead of the enthusiasm they hoped for," he said. "A shame." Want more stories about spaceflight? SIGN UP FOR THE MACH NEWSLETTER AND FOLLOW NBC NEWS MACH ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, AND INSTAGRAM.<doc-sep>
Two NASA astronauts were on the verge of making history this week by becoming the first women to take a spacewalk unaccompanied by men. But due to a lack of appropriately-sized spacesuits currently at the International Space Station , that major milestone for women in space won't be reached this week after all. NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch were scheduled to take a spacewalk together on Friday, March 29. However, the agency announced on Monday (March 25) that astronaut Nick Hague would be taking McClain's place, due to a spacesuit sizing issue. Like most spacewalking women, both McClain and Koch wear an extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) suit with a size-medium hard upper torso (HUT) — the smallest size that NASA has to offer. Of the six HUTs currently aboard the station, two of them are size medium, two are large and two are extra large. However, only one medium and one large suit are currently in a usable condition; the rest are spares that would require about 12 hours of preparation before astronauts can safely wear them on a spacewalk, NASA spokesperson Stephanie Schierholz told Space.com. Related: Women in Space: A Gallery of Firsts NASA astronaut Anne McClain is pictured during her first spacewalk on March 22. (Image credit: NASA) Because spacewalkers typically go out in pairs, the astronauts had prepped two suits, one medium and one large, to be worn for a series of three spacewalks scheduled for March 22, March 29 and April 8. While Koch has always worn a size medium during underwater spacewalk training back on Earth, McClain had trained in both a medium and a large. When McClain took her very first spacewalk last Friday (March 22), she wore the medium suit while Hague wore the large suit, Schierholz said. For the second spacewalk, NASA was planning to have McClain wear the larger size so that her slightly smaller counterpart could wear the medium. However, after McClain successfully completed that first spacewalk wearing the medium suit, she decided that she would rather not size up to a large for her second spacewalk. "Based [on] her experience in the first spacewalk in the series, McClain determined that the medium was a better fit for her in space," Schierholz said. NASA astronaut Anne McClain, wearing a size medium spacesuit, works outside the International Space Station during a spacewalk on March 22. (Image credit: NASA) So, NASA decided to swap the crew's spacewalking assignments, with Hague taking McClain's place for the second spacewalk and McClain taking Hague's assignment for the third spacewalk on April 8, when she'll head out with Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques. "Given the very busy operational schedule on board the station this spring — the spacewalks as well as several resupply missions that will begin arriving in April — the teams made the decision to keep the schedule by swapping spacewalkers rather than reconfiguring a spacesuit," Schierholz said. "This decision was based on my recommendation," McClain tweeted today (March 27). "Leaders must make tough calls, and I am fortunate to work with a team who trusts my judgement. We must never accept a risk that can instead be mitigated. Safety of the crew and execution of the mission come first." The news that the first all-female spacewalk would not happen this week sparked conversations on social media about sexism and gender bias at NASA. Even former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton chimed in on Twitter , suggesting NASA "make another suit." But it's not that simple. Because McClain was able to train in both medium and large suits back on Earth, NASA figured that she would probably be fine wearing the large suit on her second spacewalk. However, figuring out what size spacesuit an astronaut needs is a bit more complicated than simply taking measurements and trying on things like you would if you were being fitted for a business suit at a clothing store on Earth. Spacesuits don't always fit quite the same on Earth as they do in space. This is partly due to the effects of microgravity, or weightlessness . If a suit is too big, an astronaut in space might feel like they're floating around inside of it, making them struggle with mobility. That extra space inside the suit can be less noticeable when working in Earth's 1-gravity environment. "Astronauts who do not fit comfortably into available suit sizes can have increased accessibility issues," according to a report from the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG).