Christina koch and Jessica Meir have been working for more than five hours to replace the power supply system unit that failed over the weekend. This unit, installed in December 2000, regulates the supply of electricity during the period when the station is in the shadow of the Earth. It will be returned to Earth with the next Dragon cargo ship for study.
Today President Trump called them and congratulated them.
“You’re right now on television all over the world so don’t get nervous,” President Donald Trump told two female NASA astronauts.
“Station, this is President Donald Trump. Do you hear me?” he said. After a brief pause, the women responded. “That’s great, I was starting to get worried about you,” he said, seated between Vice President Mike Pence and his daughter, Ivanka Trump.
“This is the first time for a woman outside of the space station,” Trump said. “They’re conducting the first ever female spacewalk to replace an exterior part of the space station.”
Keep in mind, Russian astronaut Svetlana Savitskaya was the first woman to walk in space in 1984.
“We don’t want to take too much credit because there have been many other female spacewalkers before us. This is just the first time there have been two women outside at the same time,” one of the women told the president.
“What you do is incredible,” Trump said.”You’re very brave people. I don’t think I want to do it.”
“For us it’s just coming out here and doing our job today, and we were the crew that was tasked with this assignment,” Meir said.
“At the same time we recognize that it is a historic achievement and we do of course want to give credit for all of those that came before us. There have been a long line of female scientists, explorers, engineers and astronauts. And we have followed in their footsteps to get us where we are today.”