section_path: Human representation and participation/Women
section_name: Women
paragraph_text: Women
  
  The first woman to ever enter space was Valentina Tereshkova. She flew in 1963, but it was not until the 1980s that another woman entered space. At the time, all astronauts were required to be military test pilots; women were not able to enter this career, which is one reason for the delay in allowing women to join space crews. After the rules were changed, Svetlana Savitskaya became the second woman to enter space; she was also from the Soviet Union. Sally Ride became the next woman to enter space and the first woman to enter space through the United States program.Since then, eleven other countries have allowed women astronauts. The first all-female spacewalk occurred in 2018, by Christina Koch and Jessica Meir. These two women had both participated in separate spacewalks with NASA. The first mission to the Moon with a woman aboard is planned for 2024.
  
  Despite these developments, women are still underrepresented among astronauts and especially cosmonauts. More than 600 people have flown in space but only 75 have been women. Issues that block potential applicants from the programs, and limit the space missions they are able to go on, are, for example: