The European Space Agency has launched an astronaut Barbie inspired by Samantha Cristoforetti

Samantha Cristoforetti has already spent 199 days on the International Space Station, and at the age of 44, she is the first European wife to lead a space mission. The European Space Agency (ESA) is such a social icon that she wants to have more women the same way she did on campus, so she decided to take an initiative aimed at European girls: she reached an agreement with Mattel to launch a Barbie-inspired astronaut. Samantha Cristoforetti. Presented throughout World Space Week 2021, the doll is dedicated to the “Women in Space” theme. The first thing that stands out is her little affinity with other Barbie models who have already come close to the Space Race. This is a more faithful reproduction of reality and from this perspective, it is meant to encourage girls to become the next generation of astronauts, engineers and space scientists, but especially to feed their dream of getting into space. Of the slightly more than five hundred people who have been in space, only 13% have been women so far. These include the personalities who have shown the flight, as well as Valentina Tereshkova, Svetlana Savotskaga and Elena Kondakova, and astronauts Sally Ride, Eileen Collins and Elaine Ochoa. Since the Soviet Valentina Tereshkova (1937) made her maiden flight, on June 16, 1963 in the Vostok 6 spacecraft, becoming the first woman to go into space just two years after Gagarin made the first space flight in human history, the concept of women’s participation in this profession has changed Much. On June 16, fearing the reaction of her parents, Tereshkova announced at home that she was going to a parachute competition. His relatives learned the truth from the radio. It made 48 laps near the ground on the Vostok 6 spacecraft. Svetlana Savitskaya did not have to hide from her family that she wanted to go to space. She initially learned to fly airplanes and later went for training. As stated in a statement from the crew of the Soyuz T spacecraft in July 1984, the first woman in a wetsuit flew and performed a spacewalk. Of the 19 days, 17 hours, and 7 minutes he spent outside the Earth’s atmosphere, he spent 3 hours and 35 minutes in open space. But the American Eileen Collins, who went down in history in this way as the first commander of a space mission, traveled. Collins was a US Air Force pilot for a decade when NASA added her to their astronaut training program and made four spaceflights with 872 hours in orbit. In 1995, as part of the STS-63 Discovery mission, he commanded the shuttle and in 1999 commanded the STS-93 space mission Columbia. Eileen Ochoa, whose grandparents were born in Sonora, Mexico, is also remembered in the same way as the first Hispanic wife who went to space, in April 1993, on the shuttle Discovery. Samantha Cristoforetti is the first European astronaut out of every one of these women who inspired a doll. The Italians, although trained in Germany, will take command of the International Space Station (ISS) in 2022 and will travel with NASA astronauts such as Jill Lindgren and Bob Heinz. ESA CEO Josef Aschbacher said his appointment “is an inspiration to an entire generation moving forward to join the European Space Agency’s team of astronauts.” I found the idea of ​​the doll with a face very amusing and highlights that a statement from the proceeds from its sale will be donated to Women in Aerospace Europe to inspire the next generation by creating a scholarship. The partnership between ESA and the Barbie doll dates back to 2019, once ESA’s Communications Partnerships unit allowed Mattel Italia to use two unique pieces designed by Samantha Cristoforetti-Barbie to promote a long-term Dream Gap project. This project is based on research that has shown that cultural stereotypes and representations in the media cause young women to see themselves as unsuitable for certain types of activities as they get older. Mattel asserts that Barbie has spent more than 55 years inspiring girls with more diverse careers, and the first astronaut Barbie doll ‘walked on the moon’ is reported in 1965. Barbie later became an astrophysicist, astronaut and astronaut, and their dolls were designed According to real models in exactly the same way as Sally Ride from NASA, Anna Kekina from Roscosmos, hence I have happily and naturally assumed a doll project based on Samantha Cristoforetti. By the way, Samantha Barbie has already been sent on a parabolic zero-gravity flight and educational materials are being created for parents and educators, in collaboration with ESA, to illuminate multiple jobs in space and teach elementary school children about space. This material can be downloaded for free on the company’s website. Another aspect of this collaboration is the creation of an educational grant, “ESA x Barbie Grant”, which can be applied for at Women in Aerospace Europe, an international non-profit organization based in the Netherlands. The aim of this scholarship is to promote diversity and excellence in the field of European space.