# Did NASA really ask Sally Ride this question? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 21, 2016, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478 "2016-09-21T01:05:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/101 "2016-09-23T15:16:11Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Is this a useful metric for assessing the actual incremental cost of adding a few ounces of cotton to an astronaut’s luggage? You know, it’s only fair for tampons to be counted as part of a woman’s personal space luggage if razors/shavers are counted as part of a man’s personal space luggage. Do they count personal hygiene supplies as part of personal luggage or are they considered general supplies? Just curious. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/102 "2016-09-23T15:19:29Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Why would I _look_ at a box of tampons? I don’t recall ever doing so. I’m 58. > > Are there comics/jokes/special offers for men printed on the box? Working in retail, there is a sub-set of men who do the household shopping and thus have reason to look for and purchase personal care items for women, just as women doing the shopping purchase personal care items for men. I’ve helped quite a few men find the box of menstrual supplies required by a wife/sister/daughter/mother. So, while it’s not universal for men to be acquainted with such things it no longer surprises me when a man has some knowledge in that area. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/103 "2016-09-23T15:31:27Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Working in retail, there is a sub-set of men who do the household shopping and thus have reason to look for and purchase personal care items for women, just as women doing the shopping purchase personal care items for men. I’ve helped quite a few men find the box of menstrual supplies required by a wife/sister/daughter/mother. So, while it’s not universal for men to be acquainted with such things it no longer surprises me when a man has some knowledge in that area. OK, that makes sense, but it’s not something I’ve ever done. I wouldn’t ask my gf to stop at the hardware store and pick up some spackle and she would never ask me to stop and pick her up some tampons. It’ll never happen now, as she is postmenopausal.😉 ---
**Author:** ![Me\_Billy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Me\_Billy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Me_Billy)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/104 "2016-09-23T15:49:06Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I don’t get the people who don’t get the issue. It’s not that they asked her. It’s that they started with way too many in the first place… That is the reason for asking questions. Because you don’t know the answer! And in this case, women could be different and one specific woman may need more/less than other women. Anyway I am of the opinion there is no stupid question. I don’t chastise people for asking questions - that goes against encouraging people to ask/learn about things. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/105 "2016-09-23T15:55:59Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I agree - but the people “defending” the engineers choosing 100 tampons is also equally ridiculous. Dude needs to figure out how many to pack, isn’t familiar with usage pattern, looks in the store or catalog, biggest box on the shelf or listing is 48, so figure two of those to be on the safe side, round 96 up to 100, and there you go. Or maybe he uses ‘a pound of tampons’ as the starting point, which works out to around 100 (I did a quick amazon search to find shipping weights). This outrage is just weird to me, there are so many ways to end up with an estimate of ‘100’ that make sense, and ‘come up with a rough estimate, then sanity check it with who will be using it’ doesn’t seem like an unreasonable process to me. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/106 "2016-09-23T16:02:53Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > OK, that makes sense, but it’s not something I’ve ever done. > > I wouldn’t ask my gf to stop at the hardware store and pick up some spackle and she would never ask me to stop and pick her up some tampons. It’ll never happen now, as she is postmenopausal.😉 Being a divorced dad of two daughters, I’ve had to pick up tampons once or twice. It’s not terribly difficult, as long as they tell you _exactly_ what to buy. I would have had no way of choosing between options. And there are a lot of options. ---
**Author:** ![DonLogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/107 "2016-09-23T16:07:38Z")
I don’t believe it for one second. It’s ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/108 "2016-09-23T16:22:52Z")
I’m not really understanding why some people here seem to think it was some kind of horrible outrage that the question was asked. An engineer makes an estimate, asks the customer if it’s accurate, and finds out he was too high by a factor of 2. He fixes his estimate. What’s the problem? Ok, sure, women find it kind of amusing that his estimate was that far off, but it’s not a big deal. I’m sure men would find it amusing if a woman grossly overestimated how much shaving cream a man uses in a week. I was married for 23 years and we were as close as a couple can be, but I don’t recall that the issue of how many tampons she used per month was ever discussed. If anything, my estimate probably would have been too low. I would probably have guessed that 2-3 per day was sufficient. But most importantly, I wouldn’t (and still don’t) have any idea how much variability there is between different women. Even if I knew exactly how many my wife used, I wouldn’t necessarily assume it would be similar to what Ride used. –Mark ---
**Author:** ![DonLogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/109 "2016-09-23T16:31:17Z")
For fuck’s sake. What’s the largest box of tampons you can buy? This is what Amazon has listed categorized by the number of available items in each count: Under 15 (164) 15 to 19 (269) 20 to 24 (126) 25 to 34 (19) 35 to 39 (95) 40 to 44 (60) 45 and above (52) ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/110 "2016-09-23T16:32:57Z")
So what’s your point? How many boxes does a woman use in a month? You may know the answer, but I don’t. –Mark ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/111 "2016-09-23T16:36:11Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Second, there are plenty of ways to improvise menstrual supplies - after all, women dealt with this long before we had commercially made tampons and pads. Not to put too blunt a point on it, if I had to I’d use a previously worn sock (it’s not like you’re going to be picking up a lot of dirt walking around in microgravity) or some other previously worn article of clothing. Or a napkin. Or towel. Rolled up toilet paper. I’m imagining this conversation: Engineer: We’re sending up 20 tampons. Manager: Is that enough? Engineer: Well, probably. Manager: Probably? Aren’t you sure? Engineer: Well, I figure if she runs out, she can find an old sock or something else lying around the space station that no one else is using. Manager: You’re fired. –Mark ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/112 "2016-09-23T16:38:43Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Being a divorced dad of two daughters, I’ve had to pick up tampons once or twice. It’s not terribly difficult, as long as they tell you _exactly_ what to buy. I would have had no way of choosing between options. And there are a lot of options. You used the self check-out, right? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/113 "2016-09-23T17:18:25Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > You know, it’s only fair for tampons to be counted as part of a woman’s personal space luggage if razors/shavers are counted as part of a man’s personal space luggage. This brings us back to the question of how closely they do/don’t manage weight. If ounces mattered so much as to be the reason for being careful about not bringing _way too many_ tampons, then NASA would have just told the male astronauts, “nope no shaving gear, we can’t spare the lifting capacity; you can just get stubbly for the next week or two.” And women would simply be on the no-fly list if their period was expected to coincide with the flight. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/114 "2016-09-23T17:23:04Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > This brings us back to the question of how closely they do/don’t manage weight. If ounces mattered so much as to be the reason for being careful about not bringing _way too many_ tampons, then NASA would have just told the male astronauts, “nope no shaving gear, we can’t spare the lifting capacity; you can just get stubbly for the next week or two.” > > And women would simply be on the no-fly list if their period was expected to coincide with the flight. I don’t know that shaving or bleeding increases the net weight on the spaceship. Although there would be a big premium on smaller skinnier astronauts. A 10 pound difference in body weight would be a lot of tampons. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/115 "2016-09-23T17:26:53Z")
The problem with that notion is that periods are not on a clockwork schedule. They can come early or late and a change in environment/stress always has the potential to trigger one. It’s not real common, but it can and does happen so the possibility would also have to be considered for a woman of child-bearing age unless she lacks a uterus. Of course, it wouldn’t kill her anyone else if she just bleeds into her underwear, or one of those bodily waste undergarments astronauts have been known to wear (i.e. "adult diapers). It would just be messy, smelly, and annoying. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/116 "2016-09-23T17:53:53Z")
> [@Me\_Billy](#): > > And in this case, women could be different and one specific woman may need more/less than other women. Yeah, a lot of women here seem to be assuming that ‘of course’ everyone knows how many tampons she uses in a month, and that her usage pattern is the standard, and that no woman deviates far from it. I think I’ll choose to leave supply planning to the kind of person who, without a lot of prior knowledge, comes up with an estimate that’s within an order of magnitude of what’s needed, and then asks the person using the supplies if the estimate is reasonable. And I’ll avoid trips supplied by the philosophy ‘well, I’ll base the supply on what I use, with no fudge factor, and I won’t ask whoever’s using it any questions because I already know, it would just be silly’. It’s also really weird with the current trend of complaining about mansplaining. Complain that men never listen to women, but also be affronted when a guy asks a woman a question that he doesn’t know the answer to and she probably does. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/117 "2016-09-23T18:04:30Z")
Again, the issue wasn’t that they asked the question. That’s the appropriate thing to do, when you don’t have a clue. The issue was that they prefaced the question with a number for which they had no real basis. ---
**Author:** ![DonLogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/118 "2016-09-23T18:13:33Z")
[ol] [li]You ask, oh, I dunno, maybe the fucking medical staff? I realize undertanding of menstruation was still in its infancy in the late 1970’s but…[/li][li]You don’t ask “is 100 the right number?”, you ask, you ask 'how many?"[/li][li]Does it fit the stereotype of “geeky engineers know nothing about girlz?” Check.[/li][/ol] Apocryphal. And my bullshit detector is only set for normal sensitivity. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/119 "2016-09-23T18:14:03Z")
Since we don’t know how they arrive at the number we don’t know if they actually had any basis for it, or what that basis might be. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478/120 "2016-09-23T18:15:10Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Yeah, a lot of women here seem to be assuming that ‘of course’ everyone knows how many tampons she uses in a month, and that her usage pattern is the standard, and that no woman deviates far from it. Most astronauts are in their late 30’s to mid-40’s. By that age yes, the typical woman knows how many tampons she is likely to use in a month, and whether or not she’s likely to deviate from that a great deal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-nasa-really-ask-sally-ride-this-question/766478.md?page=7)