Columnist Charlotte Cain takes a look back at her childhood and the impact female astronauts will have on the next generation.
As I look up at the stars a woman looks down upon me.
Christina Koch ventured further than any woman had ever been as she looked out of the window on the Orion spacecraft.
She saw earth, the only habitable planet, surrounded by darkness.
Our lifeboat in the vast ocean that is the universe.
The small oasis of life all held together by the force of gravity.
She didn’t see the borders we fight over nor the boundaries that separate us nor the shared values that no longer exist, she just saw us.
The Artemis II launched on April 1, 2026, carrying a crew of four as they ventured around the moon.
When Christina was selected for this mission three years ago, I don’t think she realised how impactful she would become.
Now a woman making an impact is not a rarity. Before Christina, we had Sally Ride and Marie Curie. Both were very inspirational women who changed the course of my world. And there were many, many more.
When I was a little girl, I would stare at the history books, absolutely fascinated.
I wanted to know anything I could about everything.
On my bookshelf was this big book about space. I used to pore over the pages imagining what it would be like to see the earth from another perspective. In this book, there was a page about the first man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong. I remember asking my mother “Why hasn’t a girl been to the moon?”
She couldn’t really give me an answer, it’s difficult to explain misogyny to a seven-year-old.
I wonder whether Christina Koch had a similar experience?
Because she once was that little girl looking up at the panorama of the night sky and dreaming of being among the stars.
Now in the halls of her high school that she once walked along, a statue stands in her likeness.
It captures her achievements and her triumphs, but it fails to acknowledge all the times she was the only woman in that room.
But it’s too polished and perfect. It lacks soul.
The students will see her achievements, but she worries they will think that they aren’t enough, that they aren’t perfect, but she isn’t either.
The countless setbacks and mistakes it took to get here, it’s unrepresentative of all the times she doubted herself.
When I look up to her, I don’t see that bronze shiny statue. I see a woman who throws her hair into a braid to get it out of her face, the same way I do. A woman who saw us all for what we are, our flaws, hopes and dreams and decided to love us anyway.
Christina has gone viral on social media for being the furthest a woman has ever been into space and for her poetic words about our planet, but I hope she knows that she has also inspired people to return to paths that once felt hopeless.
My path was different, but the curiosity remains within me today.
Somewhere along the way my space books turned to Google, and my facts turned into YouTube videos.
But no matter what changes, I know for certain the next generation of little girls will have the lady who went to the moon in their space books.
And I guess one day maybe I can be someone’s Christina.