NASA canceled its first all-female spacewalk. Why? It didn't have anything that fit

A photo provided by NASA of Christina Koch working inside the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Koch is scheduled to do her first spacewalk on Friday, but not with another female astronaut as had previously been planned because only one medium-size torso component is readily available at the International Space Station. less A photo provided by NASA of Christina Koch working inside the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Koch is scheduled to do her first spacewalk on Friday, but not with another female ... more Photo: VICTOR ZELENTSOV, NYT Photo: VICTOR ZELENTSOV, NYT Image 1 of / 33 Caption Close NASA canceled its first all-female spacewalk. Why? It didn't have anything that fit 1 / 33 Back to Gallery

It would have been a perfect ending for Women's History Month — the first all-female spacewalk in NASA's 60-year history.

Astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch were set to bridge the gender gap on Friday to replace batteries on the International Space Station.

Except only one space suit fit the women's smaller frames, forcing NASA to abruptly cancel the plans.

"We do our best to anticipate the spacesuit sizes that each astronaut will need, based on the spacesuit size they wore in training on the ground, and in some cases ... astronauts train in multiple sizes," said Brandi Dean, a spokeswoman for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"However, individuals' sizing needs may change when they are on orbit, in response to the changes living in microgravity can bring about in a body," she said.

News of the historic event's cancellation elicited shock, disappointment and, in some cases, anger from the scientific community Tuesday on Twitter. Especially from women.

"I'm suuper [sic] disappointed about the all-woman spacewalk not happening as scheduled this Friday but I'm also super supportive of astronauts having the authority to say 'I would be safer using a different piece of equipment.'" Emily Lakdawalla, senior editor at The Planetary Society, tweeted Monday. "An all-woman spacewalk WILL eventually happen."

The spacewalk was scheduled Friday morning for McClain and Koch to install powerful lithium-ion batterires on the orbiting laboratory's solar arrays.

But NASA announced Monday that McClain, who did a spacewalk last week with American Nick Hague, realized she was more comfortable in a medium-sized hard upper torso — the spacesuit's shirt — as opposed to the large-sized one she originally planned to use.

As of now, only one medium-sized torso on the space station is usable, Dean said, because the second one is a spare and would need additional configuration before being used for a spacewalk.

"I wrote a whole book about how NASA just couldn't envision women in space in 1960 and ... here we are," tweeted author Stephanie Nolen, who wrote "Promised the Moon" about a group of women who were secretly training to be astronauts in the early years of the space program but who, ultimately, were never allowed to fly.

In order to keep the schedule for replacing the space station's batteries Friday, NASA bumped McClain from the spacewalk, allowing Koch to wear the medium torso and complete the walk with Hague instead. McClain will then wear it for an April 8 spacewalk that she will conduct with Canadian crewmate David Saint-Jacques.

"To stay on schedule with @Space_Station upgrades, it's safer & faster to change spacewalker assignments than reconfigure spacesuits," NASA tweeted in response Tuesday.

The all-female spacewalk would have drawn accolades for an agency that has been slow to make historic strides with women and minorities.

For example, the first female Mission Control chief flight director was only just picked last year and the U.S. was 20 years behind the Soviet Union in putting a woman into space.

The U.S. also was behind in allowing women to conduct spacewalks. The first woman to do so was the Soviet Union's Svetlana Savitskaya in 1984. Only 13 women have conducted spacewalk since; Koch will be the 14th. Crewmembers aboard the space station have conducted 214 spacewalks since 1998, when construction of the orbiting laboratory first began.

Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.