...at least not in China. The Chinese space program plans to send its first women to space, but these women must already be mothers before they're eligible to take flight.
"The insistence that they should also be wives and mothers does not relate to their multi-tasking abilities. Officials are concerned that space flight might affect their fertility."It's out of the consideration of being responsible for the female pilots," Xu told the state news agency Xinhua. "Though there is little evidence on how the space experience will affect the female constitution, we have to be extra cautious. After all, it's unprecedented in China."
No word yet on why women's fertility is deemed more important than that of men, especially in a country with limited reproductive rights—nor what of women who'd like to be spacefarers but prefer to remain childfree. Read all about it in the Guardian UK.
