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The first woman in space seems like it happened forever ago, and that's because it has been nearly sixty years.
In 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, became the first-ever woman to journey into the beyond and unknown.
Thereafter, it took another twenty years for another woman to be awarded the opportunity.
This is also due to the fact that only people who were qualified military test pilots were allowed to be astronauts, so you might have already guessed that this career was not availed to women at the time.
Eventually these laws were changed by NASA after complaints of gender discrimination became prevalent.
It was in 1978 when the space program was officially opened to women, but not without discrimination.
READ MORE: The person responsible for the first photo of the black hole is a woman and her name is Katie Bouman
The first U.S. woman to enter space became the subject of sexist commentary and condescending interviews before she was set to leave earth.
A 1983 People Weekly article reported how she would get asked about her reproductive organs
While the road to being allowed to explore the unknown can be described as a little more than rocky for women, many more have visited the outer space, with the most recent woman planning a space mission being Christina Koch.
This may seem like a victory for women, but not when you look at the stats.
According to this NASA history site, only 59 women have been into space while a whopping 502 men have been into space.
The numbers are quite alarming.
Which is why NASA announcing that by 2024 they plan to have a woman walk on the moon for the first time ever, is the kind of news that we women need to hear, especially given the fact that there have already been twelve men to have achieved this feat.
U.S. President Donald Trump earlier announced that he would be increasing funding toward the space program and this news was subsequently followed by the news that a woman will be landed on the moon nearly five decades after a man did it.
CNN reports that President Trump "challenged" NASA to land at the South Pole of the moon by 2024 - a challenge which the space agency willfully accepted. The mission is set to be called Artemis, after the Greek god Apollo's twin sister, and will see both a man and a woman land on the moon.
The identities of the man and woman are yet to be confirmed.
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