"The best and the whitest" ~ Love, NASA

For the past nine months to a year, I've been avidly following space-related news and happenings around the world... a shared interest between myself and my husband. As a pair of Gen-Xers with two children who will end up being the ones inheriting the catastrophic results of climate-change our government continues to deny, how can we not be interested in the efforts to understand and learn how to navigate and possibly exist in space?

So from NASA to SpaceX to 3-D printed housing for Mars, I've "oohed" over the gorgeous photos of the Milky Way and our solar system, and snarked about Bezos' ultimate power trip. I love watching live broadcasts of spacewalks at ISS, and the educational efforts of NASA TV encouraging us all to "do science".

Late last month (July 2019), three astronauts -- from Russia, the United States and Italy -- were lifted into space and flown to the International Space Station to begin their stint on the ISS. They lifted off from at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. I spun through these photos of the formal send-off and launch of the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft, and was struck -- really horrifically taken-aback, honestly -- by the sheer number of white men dominating the ceremonial or real positions of authority.

Image source: Spaceflightnow.com

Image source: Spaceflightnow.com

Where are the women? Where are the people of color? 
Wow, NASA. I mean, really.

I understand the send-off took place in Kazakhstan, right next door to Russia, and presumably Russians might dominate as attendees. Maybe this wasn't the right lift-off to scrutinize, and I'll definitely be paying attention to the photos of the next lift-off from the United States. But as NASA was sending astronaut Andrew Morgan up to the ISS, I have to assume they were duly represented. And I couldn't find a single person who even appears to be in a position of power in that whole string of photos that wasn't a white male.

NASA talks a good game about diversity here on their career page. I guess it's just positions of leadership that are so closely guarded by white men.

If you look at NASA's "No FEAR Act" filing for the overall agency, it becomes clear that, except for "reprisal" (33 filings for 2 18), filings related to "race" and "sex" are the highest reported categories (each at 27 filings for 2018). The next closest category of complaints filed were around "age" (18 for 2018).  And the year-over-year comparison shows the issue is only getting worse, which I'm inferring to mean the more women and people of color they bring in, the more painful the issues become with the "old guard". It looks like if you dare report an issue about race or sex, you can definitely expect a reprisal. Sweet.

It's looking like the agency that is supposed to rocket us into the 22nd century is still sitting back in the 20th century.

I will keep monitoring this issue, and will post updates if I learn my impressions were incorrect.