NASA Thought Sally Ride Needed 100 Tampons For One Week In Space And Now NASA Is Being Period Shamed
[In preparation for Ride’s trip aboard the Space Shuttle] Tampons were packed with their strings connecting them, like a strip of sausages, so they wouldn’t float away. Engineers asked Ride, “Is 100 the right number?” She would be in space for a week. “That would not be the right number,” she told them.
Apparently, the male engineers then replied that “we just want to be safe.”
That’s right. NASA was under the impression that Sally Ride’s seven days in space would require 100 tampons. We have many, many questions about the logic behind that theory:
NASA just wanted to “be safe” from what exactly?
What did they think was going to happen up there?1. Were the engineers under the impression that tampons were a defense against space monsters?
2. Or bears?
3. Or was NASA concerned that tampons were a new and unreliable technology?
4. Was NASA worried that some of the 100 tampons might not be effective for their intended use?
5. Were some of the tampons intended as fail-safe measures to ensure that any individual tampon failure would be an isolated event, rather
than a total systemic collapse?Real talk: did the NASA engineers know what tampons are for?
I saw the above article floating around the ole internet and I’m pretty sure that NASA is being period shamed. In their defense, it was 1984 and I doubt most of the fellas out there even knew what a period was or which hole the blood comes from. I do. Because I’m a modern man who understands science and I host a show (Hi Haters on Barstool Radio Channel 85 on SiriusXM) where we cover period facts every Tuesday.
Kate and I have had Period Tuesdays for a few months now. My knowledge is growing. That being said, I think that I would get in a little bit of trouble if I assumed a lady needed a certain amount of tampons for a week. I have no idea how many they need. 10? 20? 50? Is 100 too few? Could be. I know about the cycle but I have no idea how often the ladies need to change those bad boys out.
Changing tampons is like the wet dream for ladies, I think. Just like the ladies have no idea how often the fellas have wet dreams (3 to 4 times a night), we have no idea how many times ladies need to change their cotton.
Not to mention, what does the lack of gravity do to the cycle? I think Sally was the first woman in Space so there was a lot of science left to be done.
Tying the tampons together like sausage links is kinda weird tho. Just get a ziplock bag and be done with it. That’s all I’m gonna say on this matter. In fact, I fear that I’ve already said too much.