NASA is planning to land the first woman on the moon in a little over three years’ time and has whittled down the list to just nine candidates. They include a Cambridge graduate, a marine veteran who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and a former University of Bath rugby player who starred in the English Women’s Premiership, a helicopter-flying mother of twin girls and a scuba diver with a love of animals who dreamed of going to space at the age of five. With NASA’s uncrewed Artemis I rocket set to launch later this month – the first of three complex missions that will pave the way for returning humans to the moon – the countdown is officially on to become ‘First Woman’. Artemis 1 will be an uncrewed flight that will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration, and demonstrate our commitment and capability to extend human existence to the moon and beyond. During this flight, the spacecraft will launch on the most powerful rocket in the world and fly farther than any spacecraft built for humans has ever flown. It will travel 280,000 miles (450,600 km) from Earth, thousands of miles beyond the moon over the course of about a three-week mission.
Who will be the first woman to walk on the moon?
