Even though there was a woman during the applications for the original Mercury Seven astronauts, who passed all the same tests as the men, she was not chosen because of the military combat requirement.

Of course since 1983, NASA has had females as regular crewmembers on space shuttles and this year the shuttle will have its first female shuttle commander.

Here I will present several reasons why NASA should not only have females as crewmembers as they have had for the past 16 years, but also why NASA should use all female crews in their space crafts.

In the days of budget cuts of the cost cutting 90s, doing more with less has been NASA's goal under Daniel Goldin's administration. By using all female crews in certain missions, this goal of economies of scale can be achieved.

I certainly am not trying to sound sexist but am giving practical reasons of cost and weight. The majority of women are lighter than men and have smaller frames as a result of their biological structure.

If you take seven men versus seven women, the seven women in total will weigh less than the seven men. As a result of a lower weight, we have a lower cost.

The shuttle will be lighter and at a lower cost due to the smaller weight. Of course in an aircraft, less weight would mean less drag.

This applies to the space shuttle only at the time of vertical lift-off where the shuttle is thrusting through 4g forces of the earth's atmosphere.

Some may argue that as the reduced weight is negligible the final result will be negligible cost savings, but the truth is when you get to budgets of millions, nothing is negligible.

NASA could save significant money by using all-female crews. For example if it costs $10,000 pounds to orbit (NASA Release 99-9), and assuming that the average female weighs roughly 135 pounds, and the average male weighs 185 pounds, that is a difference of 50 lbs. per person.

Now if you have an average of seven persons fly on each shuttle mission. The cost savings of all-female crew would be 50 pounds x $10,000 x 7= $3,500,000. Assuming just six shuttle missions per year, and you have cost savings of $24.5 million per year.

Some may argue that it is weight, not gender, that is the BFOQ ("bonafide occupational qualification"), a lightweight male would also qualify, but generally there are not many "lightweight" males and all-female crew solves this dilemma completely.

If we can save $24.5 million a year, that can be significant. Of course this analysis is true if we only use all female crews. However, even if NASA uses all female crews only 50% of the time, NASA can still save $12 million a year which is not a mere bag of shells.

Some may argue that averages are affected by extreme conditions under the normal distribution curve. Therefore my reply is that even with the standard deviation from the average there is still a 50-lb. difference in males and females which can still save significant amounts of money for NASA and taxpayers.

Women in general have smaller hands with more improved motor coordination for intricate electronics type work. Of course having smaller hands can be a great asset in a spacecraft because of the amount of very intricate experiments that must be performed.

Also women can better handle small electronic components and manipulate the experiments with more precision. Women have more precise fine motor skills as opposed to men who have better gross motor skills.

Gross motor skills such as lifting become unimportant in space because of the absence of gravity. Lift is a force and since in space there is little or no gravity, such a force becomes moot.

However in engineering and astronautics, the use of fine motor skills is more important. On the whole, women have more precision, efficiency and accuracy. This results in better astronaut production, which of course increases the speed that an experiment may be conducted. Speed increases output, which decreases costs.

Again, here is another form of economies of scale that can be created by the use of all female crews. Of course, these arguments are also why NASA should consider sending all female crews on the space station.

According to Lisa Mezzacappa, who studied at SUNY StonyBrook on psychology in space in the early 90s, women are better equipped to handle long flights than men do.

This is because women can be more of a source of comfort, friendship and consolation for one another while coping with the isolation of space flight.

It can be much more difficult for men to be sources of comfort to one another in times of isolation.

There was evidence of this in the MIR space station when Shannon Lucid had a much easier time adjusting to the isolation of long term space flight than did many of the male Russian cosmonauts and even her male astronaut counterparts. And if she had the comfort of other women, her adjustment might have even been easier.

In conclusion, based on the arguments stated above, it is certainly an idea that NASA should at least entertain the possibility of using all female crews for the reasons stated.

Professor Lorraine Lavorata is an adjunct lecturer of business and computers who lectures on space and aviation history, social issues in space, France's space contributions, spin-offs and how microgravity makes space accessible. She is the president and founder of Suffolk Challengers for Space.

A Woman's Place In Space - Discovery Channel Online Report

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