NASA, with the tampons.
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2025
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Tbh, this is not quite as dumb as it sounds. Tampons weigh nothing and if there's no way to resupply, it's not quite as dumb to take more than you need. What if, for example, there's a series defect on these things and a large portion of them are defective?
In fact, when they asked her said it's excessive, to which they told her they wanted to be on the safe side, so she said to cut it in half and bring 50pcs (which is still excessive for most periods, but on the safe side).
In fact, in the same mission they also brought jelly beans, which were entirely irrelevant to the mission, because Reagan insisted on his favourite snack to go to orbit. They were likely heavier than 100 tampons and also much less necessary up there.
I get the impression they were also preparing for a potential freak discovery where it turns out zero G has an extreme effect on the menstrual cycle, and they suddenly need a lot of them.
If you have a sample size of 0 and a backup plan of "crash and burn", it does make sense to be extra careful with the preparation.
I prefer my backup plans to include "halt and catch fire"
"halt" might be difficult in orbit.
This implies that catching fire is easy while in orbit with minimal, if any, atmosphere.
Interesting take.
It's not that hard. You just have to lose a little bit of speed, enough for re-entry, and there's your fire.
How long could the shuttle stay up there if it was deemed unsafe to return?
They might have been preparing to orbit for long enough to launch a rescue mission.
100 is probably still to many. I’m suprized they didn’t just buy a box of them, or ask the manufacturers, who surely have the most data on average tampon consumption.
Why ask the manufacturer about the average consumption when you can ask the person in question about the real consumption?
Tbh, the story was reported by Ride on a talk show for laughs. It's not exactly a well-documented incidence.
Likely, the package they ordered had 100pcs in them (because it's meant for commercial clients) and they asked her something like "We got 100 here, how many do you need?"
It's of course fun to insinuate that NASA engineers have never been close to women and thus have no idea how tampons work, but it's more likely that this was just played up for laughs at a talk show.
Yeah it’s a lot like the Russian pencil/ vs space pen meme at this point. (Spoiler, Russia ended up using space pens from Fischer too)
I dislike the engineers have no common sense trope, as it’s another instance of sowing distrust in experts that’s been going on since the late 70s.
Yeah, the story of the space pen is also completely wrong, because Fisher mostly created the space pen for marketing reasons. They didn't create the pen and then end the story there. No, they created the pen because they could sell it to the non-space-faring public, and it was a huge success.
They are still selling it today, 59 years after its invention in 1966.
And the development of the space pen didn't take years and didn't cost millions. In fact, NASA only paid a total of $2400 for 400pcs of them. And the main reason they even tasked Fisher with making these was that they were cheaper than the mechanical pencils they first wanted to buy.
Absolute agreement.
For the nose bleeds occuring from 0G ;)
No
Reagan probably got Nancy to shove them up his ass while performing her famous BJs.
Presidential Manpon
When you're dealing with the tyranny of rocketry, every gram matters.
That said, I agree with your point. The mass and volume was well within acceptable mission parameters.