Trump calls NASA astronauts to congratulate them on first all-female spacewalk

10:05 • 19.10.19
Event

"You're right now on television all over the world so don't get nervous," President Donald Trump told two female NASA astronauts for conducting the first-ever all-female spacewalk Friday in a mission to replace a failed power control unit, USA Today reports. 

Christina Koch and Jessica Meir stepped outside the International Space Station just before 8 a.m. EST Friday and planned to spend more than five hours replacing the regulator, which controls how much energy flows from the station's massive solar panels to battery units. 

The president called the two women, who were still outside the station completing the replacement, from the White House Roosevelt Room on Friday. 

"Station, this is President Donald Trump. Do you hear me?" he said. After a brief pause, the women responded. "That's great, I was starting to get worried about you," he said, seated between Vice President Mike Pence and his daughter, Ivanka Trump. 

Trump repeatedly called the women “brave.” 

The two astronauts, who are both part of the 2013 NASA class, appeared to correct Trump after he suggested it was the first time a female astronaut had gone on a spacewalk.

“This is the first time for a woman outside of the space station,” Trump said. “They’re conducting the first ever female spacewalk to replace an exterior part of the space station.”

"We don't want to take too much credit because there have been many other female spacewalkers before us. This is just the first time there have been two women outside at the same time," one of the women told the president. 


The call was the first time since 1969 that a U.S. president has spoken to astronauts while they were outside the station, according to the White House. 

President Richard Nixon called Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, who were on the moon, in what some referred to at the time as the longest-distance telephone call ever placed.

“What you do is incredible," Trump said."You're very brave people. I don't think I want to do it." 

 

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