Two Gen Z aerospace engineers will conduct the first menstrual flow studies in microgravity

Apparently, getting into orbit is far less mysterious than the female body. In 1983, as Sally Ride prepared to become the first American woman to head to space, an all-male cadre of engineers helping her prep famously asked her if 100 tampons would cover a six-day shuttle mission. Some 40 years on, NASA is considerably more hip to women, but little has progressed in menstrual studies in space. The physicist and astronautical engineer Manju Bangalore, 28, is hoping to change that next year, when she and Priya Abiram, 22, an aerospace engineer, board a Virgin Galactic flight to conduct the first formal research study of menstrual fluid dynamics in microgravity. Along the way, they’ll become the youngest South Asian women in space. With most information so far coming from anecdotal astronaut observations, the two engineers are seeking actual measurements. “Right now, the data says that menstruation is generally safe to do in space, but it’s limited data, and it’s all qualitative,” says Bangalore. “So, we are pursuing the first quantitative study of menstruation in space.” Using a fluid that mimics the properties of menstrual blood, they plan to track both flow behavior and the absorp…