With those astronauts going to the ISS for a week and ending up being there for 9 months, packing too much was the right thing to do.

They also don't want to be caught unprepared if it turned out that microgravity messed with menstruation, and made it worse than it would be on earth.

On top of all that, they didn't even send that many, they simply asked her if it was reasonable. She said to half it.

Good comment overall, but tampons should not be used instead of gauze for open wounds. They don't have nearly enough packing capacity to actually stop the bleeding. They only soak up the blood while the wound stays open and dangerous

This story always drives me insane. I'm a woman with endometriosis. When I was younger and was being dismissed as "dramatic" and "attention seeking", I absolutely had times where I went through a tampon an hour for 6 days straight (even overnight, had to set an alarm every hour to go swap), so 100 tampons for 6 days isn't actually ridiculous.

They actually just asked her if it was reasonable. She said to half it.

In a 2002 oral history interview with Rebecca Wright, then coordinator for the NASA Johnson Space Center History Office, Ride was asked what items NASA had added to her flight kit, including the tampons in question.

"I remember the engineers trying to decide how many tampons should fly on a one-week flight; they asked, 'Is 100 the right number?'" Ride recalled, according to the transcript. She replied that, "No, that would not be the right number."

"They said, 'Well, we want to be safe,'" continued Ride. "I said, 'Well, you can cut that in half with no problem at all.'"

NASA engineers apparently had a history of sending women to space with inadequate supplies. In that same interview, Ride noted that the engineers had also decided that women astronauts would want makeup. So, they designed a makeup kit.

"The engineers at NASA, in their infinite wisdom, decided that women astronauts would want makeup — so they designed a makeup kit," Ride was quoted as saying in a January 2018 tweet shared by the NASA History Office.

It is not uncommon for astronauts to head to space with their own personal hygiene kits, which have been issued as standard equipment for astronauts since the 1960s. These kits typically contain items like a toothbrush, lotion, deodorant, comb, and razor. But in a predominantly male field in the 1980s, experts apparently had limited knowledge in the types of hygiene items that would be necessary for a woman.

The optional — and unused — makeup kit included eyeliner, mascara, eye shadow, eye makeup remover, blusher, and lip gloss. It went on display in the Human Spaceflight at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, in 2002.

What a fascinating little piece of history! They even designed a makeup kit smh. Thanks for the rabbit hole!

Lmao, thats a very silly story. That's like 14 tampons a day 😅

Thanks for filling me in!