How Do Female Astronauts Menstruate in Space?
Dear Cecil: Without gravity, how do female astronauts menstruate while in space? — Gayle, Ventura, CA Cecil replies: For a while there, Gayle, the question wasn’t how women would menstruate in space but whether it was too risky to find out. Although the first female cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova, had flown in Vostok 6 in 1963, women were excluded from the U.S. space program during its early years. The official reason for this was that, as a matter of policy, U.S. astronauts were drawn from the ranks of military test pilots, and all the test pilots were men. If you ask me, though, the real reason was American male panic about women and their mysterious inner workings. Several plane crashes in the 1930s had involved menstruating female pilots, and experts — male experts, of course — suggested that putting a woman with “menstrual disturbances” in the cockpit was an invitation to disaster. Eventually the more hysterical fears receded, but some space medics still harbored serious concerns
