Washington: US President Donald Trump was humiliated for a mistake while he contacted NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch at the International Space Station (ISS) to congratulate them for being the “first ever female spacewalkers”, a media report said.
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A delay in connection between Trump and the space station made for a short period of silence, before Meir made it clear that she and Koch were not the first female spacewalker, The Daily Express said in the report on Monday.
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In 1984, Svetlana Yevgenyevna Savitskaya became the first woman to complete a spacewalk. In the 35 years since, a total of 15 women have spacewalked.
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Koch, an electrical engineer, and Meir, who has a doctorate in marine biology, stepped outside in their NASA space suits on Friday night.
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The mistake came as Trump sat at a table in the White House with his daughter Ivanka Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, as well as few NASA officials and a group of Girl Scouts in the background.
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Staring at the camera, Trump said: “This is the first time for a woman outside of the space station.”
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“You are amazing people; they’re conducting the first ever female spacewalk to replace an exterior part of the space station. They’re doing some work, and they’re doing it in a very high altitude – an altitude that very few people will ever see.”
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But Meir could then be heard correcting the President, explaining that the event marked the first time two women had been outside the spacecraft at the same time.
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She said: “We don’t want to take too much credit because there have been many other female spacewalkers before. This is the first time that there’s been two women outside at the same time.”
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