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ATTN Media: When interviewing a highly-trained cosmonaut, do not ask her this.

 

Yelena Serova: space engineer, cosmonaut, wearer of socks

 

 

 

 

 

BY AMY STOCKWELL

We’re calling it a space smackdown.

Early this morning Australian time, a Russian space shuttle blasted into space with three cosmonauts on board, bound for the International Space Station (ISS).

On board will be 38-year-old Yelena Serova, Russia’s first female ISS crew member and the first female cosmonaut in 17 years. Serova is a space engineer who has trained for seven years for this launch. So naturally all the press were interested in was how she was planning to wear her hair and how her daughter would feel why she was away.

Yelena Serova graciously accepts the award for Hero of the Week

In the days leading up to launch, the Russian media ran stories focussed on whether Serova would call her husband from space (it became a headline: “Russian female cosmonaut promised to call husband from orbit”) and what clothes she would bring with her (an article included a quote from the man who makes clothing for cosmonauts that included the line: “Her socks had to be custom-made because she has little feet.”)

On Wednesday, during a pre-launch press conference at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, Serova, flanked by her male colleagues, was bombarded with questions about hair-washing and how she will manage to bond with her 17-year-old daughter while she is away.

Eventually the inaneness of the questions wore her down and she became our new hero when she threw back at the gathered throng:

“Aren’t you interested in my colleagues’ hair?

I will be the first Russian woman to fly to ISS. I feel a huge responsibility toward the people who trained us and I want to assure them: We won’t let you down!”

Yelena Serova delivers space smackdown

 

This woman is shooting into space. She has trained non-stop for almost a decade. She is an experienced space engineer. There have only been three cosmonauts before her.

Nobody cares about her socks, her hair or her phone habits.

This woman is at the top of her game. And thanks to Yelena Serova’s brilliant response, the world knows it.

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