Female Supremacy Articles - Page 13

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JAMES REYNOLDS

SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT

If Space scientists had known better at the time of the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969, the mission’s defining legacy might have read "one small step for a woman, one giant leap for womankind".

New medical research has revealed that the mental and physical characteristics of women mean they are far better suited to long-term space travel than men. As a result, one medical expert has now claimed there is a very strong case for an all-female cosmonaut crew on the first mission to put humans on Mars.

William Rowe, a professor of medicine at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo, in the United States, said: "A manned trip to the Red Planet should, in fact, be womanned."

Prof Rowe has published new research in the journal Mens Health and Gender, which focused on the hormonal and physical make-up of women under 30 years of age, and concludes that they are far better suited to long-term, long-distance travel than men.

In particular, men in their thirties and forties are much more likely to develop the first signs of heart disease, a condition exacerbated by space travel. Women are protected from this by their comparatively high levels of oestrogen.

Drug treatments during space flight are not recommended because they are not readily absorbed in weightless conditions, the liver and the kidneys do not function at their best and the drug compounds deteriorate more quickly owing to the higher levels of radiation experienced in space.