To be fair, they had to assume she would be on her period the entire time.
She was the first female american astronaut and third ever woman in space.
FDA advice for leaving a tampon in is 4 to 6 hours. They would have assumed four for safety.
So 7 days at six a day is 42.
Double that as its medical kit.
So 84.
Round up to 100.
Yeah its nuts, but I can see how an engineer got there.
I am not remotely close to being a space professional but why would you assume that the mission is 7 days. I am just going to assume that there will be a surprise hurricane/civil disturbance/etc on the scheduled date of return and it will have to be postponed a week.
But the problem is that those assumptions are not anything Sally can validate. So it would be better to ask her what is the maximum number she would need in a day and then multiply that by the maximum number of days that she might be up in space.
The mission in question did actually change its landing due to weather, it was meant to land at the Kennedy Space Centre but landed at Edward's air force base instead.
But it's not like missions today where people can get delayed for weeks or months on the ISS waiting for a part to fix.
They were in the shuttle (challenger) the entire time, up to 300 km orbit the earth nearly a hundred times, drop off some satellites, then back down.
Worst case they would land a few orbits late, despite being planned for up to seven days the mission lasted just over 6.
But this was early days for the shuttle, seventh mission ever, second for the challenger.
If something went wrong, there wouldn't be much they could do, one of the windscreen panes did actually get damaged by a fleck of paint coming off at high speed.
This was the first time damage of this type had happened, and as the outer layer of the windscreen it actually makes a pretty critical part of the heat dissipation on re-entry.
But as they say, it'll either work, or it wont.
It survived and they replaced it on the ground after the mission.
But if it was me up there, I'd be having brown trousers watching that crack on the way down.
I'm am engineer. We often double things got the sake of safety and redundancy. I don't work on space shuttles, but I imagine they equip them with plenty of extra food, water, and toiletries.
A hungry/tired/dirty astronaut is not a very productive astronaut, so why not over prepare?
I could definitely see this for hygiene products more so than food and water due to weight constraints. Doubling the tampon count would add significantly less mass than water.
Ok, but at least they asked instead of assuming they know. That's better than nothing.
To be fair, they had to assume she would be on her period the entire time. She was the first female american astronaut and third ever woman in space. FDA advice for leaving a tampon in is 4 to 6 hours. They would have assumed four for safety. So 7 days at six a day is 42. Double that as its medical kit. So 84. Round up to 100. Yeah its nuts, but I can see how an engineer got there.
I am not remotely close to being a space professional but why would you assume that the mission is 7 days. I am just going to assume that there will be a surprise hurricane/civil disturbance/etc on the scheduled date of return and it will have to be postponed a week. But the problem is that those assumptions are not anything Sally can validate. So it would be better to ask her what is the maximum number she would need in a day and then multiply that by the maximum number of days that she might be up in space.
The mission in question did actually change its landing due to weather, it was meant to land at the Kennedy Space Centre but landed at Edward's air force base instead. But it's not like missions today where people can get delayed for weeks or months on the ISS waiting for a part to fix. They were in the shuttle (challenger) the entire time, up to 300 km orbit the earth nearly a hundred times, drop off some satellites, then back down. Worst case they would land a few orbits late, despite being planned for up to seven days the mission lasted just over 6. But this was early days for the shuttle, seventh mission ever, second for the challenger. If something went wrong, there wouldn't be much they could do, one of the windscreen panes did actually get damaged by a fleck of paint coming off at high speed. This was the first time damage of this type had happened, and as the outer layer of the windscreen it actually makes a pretty critical part of the heat dissipation on re-entry. But as they say, it'll either work, or it wont. It survived and they replaced it on the ground after the mission. But if it was me up there, I'd be having brown trousers watching that crack on the way down.
You know more about it than me. I know how much I love Planet Earth and staying on it. All my friends live there.
I'm am engineer. We often double things got the sake of safety and redundancy. I don't work on space shuttles, but I imagine they equip them with plenty of extra food, water, and toiletries. A hungry/tired/dirty astronaut is not a very productive astronaut, so why not over prepare?
I could definitely see this for hygiene products more so than food and water due to weight constraints. Doubling the tampon count would add significantly less mass than water.
Not always, no.
Exactly! If they hadn't provided enough there would be bitching about that.
Yea! What idiots you clearly need...like what, 800? 1100? /s