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NASA Deletes Comic Book About How Women Can Be Astronauts

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Re: NASA Deletes Comic Book About How Women Can Be Astronauts

#31

Post by chneu »

normalaccess wrote: post #16
iancmceachern wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im the opposite, I think things like this are the most important things they can be doing. Empowering the next generation of innovators, empowering people. People are who do those experiments...

Empowering to do what? If NASA spends all day making comics then will attract people that like making media about rockets and not rockets themselves. If NASA makes cool rockets then they will attract people that naturally align with their mission of making cool rockets. If you do [THING] get good at doing [THING] and you will attract people that also want to do [THING].

This is deeply flawed thinking. It also doesn't really make sense in the real world.

How does anyone hear about the thing you're doing or making? How do people figure out how to get involved? How do you attract different people(women, POC, etc) to your thing if they aren't already represented?

People don't just magically know about something that's interesting to them. They have to discover it.

Tons of very influential or popular figures only took their path because of things like comic books(art) from NASA. I wouldn't be an engineer today if it weren't for stuff like How It's Made or Bill Nye. Representation matters.

Re: NASA Deletes Comic Book About How Women Can Be Astronauts

#32

Post by iancmceachern »

normalaccess wrote: post #16
iancmceachern wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im the opposite, I think things like this are the most important things they can be doing. Empowering the next generation of innovators, empowering people. People are who do those experiments...

Empowering to do what? If NASA spends all day making comics then will attract people that like making media about rockets and not rockets themselves. If NASA makes cool rockets then they will attract people that naturally align with their mission of making cool rockets. If you do [THING] get good at doing [THING] and you will attract people that also want to do [THING].

What is your opinion on Rosie the Rivoter?

Re: NASA Deletes Comic Book About How Women Can Be Astronauts

#33

Post by GolfPopper »

doener wrote: post #13
MortyAnvil wrote: post #4

Always good to give the warning signs of fascism a read. POWERFUL AND CONTINUING NATIONALISM DISDAIN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IDENTIFICATION OF ENEMIES AS A UNIFYING CAUSE SUPREMACY OF THE MILITARY RAMPANT SEXISM CONTROLLED MASS MEDIA OBSESSION WITH NATIONAL SECURITY RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT INTERTWINED CORPORATE POWER PROTECTED LABOR POWER SUPPRESSED DISDAIN FOR INTELLECTUALS & THE ARTS OBSESSION WITH CRIME & PUNISHMENT RAMP…

Elon Musk wants to save Western civilization from empathy https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/05/politics/elon-musk-rogan-...

I think that was the single most horrific thing I've seen from him.

Since we're already discussing a novelist, I'll add some (spoken) lyrics[1], from "Sophia" by The Crüxshadows[2]:

"The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty. If you wish to find that which becomes the dividing line between mankind and other biological classifications, it rests not in brain size, dominance, or even emotional capability. It lies within the innate capacity for human beings to reflect on their actions and show regret. It is most certainly the ability to empathize that gives them their position. All mammals understand love and affection, but only man shows a propensity to place himself in the shoes of another life-form. Losing this capability, among individuals of the species reduces them below their much heralded position and readies the climate for the likely fall of man. A fall from grace."

1. https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858623547/ 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPaUvYPRzrM

Re: NASA Deletes Comic Book About How Women Can Be Astronauts

#34

Post by roryirvine »

parl_match wrote: post #23
4887d30omd8 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In 2023, numbers released by UNOOSA showed that only 11 percent of the world's astronauts are women"

A large part of that is that there aren't a lot of astronauts, and those who were selected for a substantial part of the space program had external forces selecting for men. A big requirement was someone who was an experienced pilot, likely from the military, with a proven track record of unusual planes. Women were explicitly prevented from that on-ramp. It wasn't until the 80s, 20+ years into the program, that the f…

Sure, there may well be various structural factors which may explain some or all of the disparity - but it's worth noting that whenever there's an attempt to fix this, we hear endless complaints along the lines of "it's wrong to change selection procedures, there just aren't enough women or minority candidates applying, it's a pipeline problem".

Well, these comic books are an attempt to fix the pipeline problem.

In reality, there are likely multiple factors in play. But if you believe that, after removing "anything specifically targetting women" from their communications, NASA are going to alter downstream selection criteria in order to compensate then I suspect you are going to be disappointed.

Re: NASA Deletes Comic Book About How Women Can Be Astronauts

#35

Post by IAmBroom »

normalaccess wrote: post #17
financetechbro wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya who cares about efforts to empower future female astronauts. NASA is more fun as a boys club anyway /s

Cool jobs get the gender treatment. Ain't no women begging to work on an oil derrick or be a plumber.

Well, that's certainly an opinion.

Re: NASA Deletes Comic Book About How Women Can Be Astronauts

#36

Post by IAmBroom »

parl_match wrote: post #23
4887d30omd8 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In 2023, numbers released by UNOOSA showed that only 11 percent of the world's astronauts are women"

A large part of that is that there aren't a lot of astronauts, and those who were selected for a substantial part of the space program had external forces selecting for men. A big requirement was someone who was an experienced pilot, likely from the military, with a proven track record of unusual planes. Women were explicitly prevented from that on-ramp. It wasn't until the 80s, 20+ years into the program, that the f…

You mean like: women are smaller and therefore require less life-support reservoirs? An all-female astronaut corps was investigated in the Mercury days for just that reason.

Oh wait, no, that's the opposite of what you are looking for.

Re: NASA Deletes Comic Book About How Women Can Be Astronauts

#37

Post by IAmBroom »

cbeach wrote: post #18

Isn’t this kind of messaging just horribly patronising for women? I’m interested to hear from women that got into STEM on merit - how do you feel about the institutional boosterism of your gender?

By your argument, my GI Joe and Lone Ranger toys were patronising toys that prevented me from getting into the military or horsemanship purely on merit.

Proactively courting interest in children is completely orthogonal to "getting into" anything by merit. Millions of boys that didn't grow up to meet the requirements of military pilot positions, still yearned to be astronauts. Including, probably, 100% of those that did qualify.

Encouraging children to aspire to greatness in their adult life is not patronizing in any way.

Re: NASA Deletes Comic Book About How Women Can Be Astronauts

#38

Post by IAmBroom »

banqjls wrote: post #24
4887d30omd8 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In 2023, numbers released by UNOOSA showed that only 11 percent of the world's astronauts are women"

[flagged]

The links in that X/Twitter post go nowhere. And there's no proof a crime was even committed; just alleged.

In fact: "The claims were later found to be false, and McClain was cleared." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_McClain

You've slandered a Bronze-Star decorated astronaut, who was so outstanding she was the youngest in her class.

Re: NASA Deletes Comic Book About How Women Can Be Astronauts

#40

Post by hulitu »

iancmceachern wrote: post #11
hoboweasel wrote: post #10

I'd rather NASA made more experiments than comic books. Regardless if their content.

Im the opposite, I think things like this are the most important things they can be doing. Empowering the next generation of innovators, empowering people. People are who do those experiments...

> Empowering the next generation of innovators, empowering people

How ? With children stories and corporate newspeak ? /s

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