Nasa is preparing for the first woman to walk on the Moon – it’s been a long time coming

In 2024, Nasa will be shooting for the Moon once more, but this time a woman will walk the lunar surface, writes Mick O’Hare

In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to fly in space (AFP/Getty)

The United States is returning to the moon. Artemis 1, powered by Nasa’s Space Launch System (SLS), the biggest rocket ever built, made a successful uncrewed orbit of the moon in 2022 and returned to earth with nary a hitch. Artemis 2, the dress rehearsal for a moon landing, remains on course for 2024. And Artemis 3, scheduled for the following year, will return astronauts to the lunar surface, more than 50 years since a human last walked there.

The Apollo programme took 12 people – all of them white men – to the moon and back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This time, when Artemis returns with a crew, a woman will walk on the moon, as will a person of colour. They might be the same person.

On 5 October 2022 Nicole Aunapu Mann became the first Native American woman in space when she started her five-month mission on the International Space Station (ISS). Mann, of the Wailaki people from what is today north-western California, said before she flew to the ISS that as a girl the thought of becoming an astronaut seemed impossible. “I was born in 1977 and in my mind, at that time, it was not in the realm of possibilities,” she said referring to her race and sex.