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NASA spacewalkers both want to be the first woman on the moon

NASA's history-making women astronauts have long dreamed of a moonwalk.

Amanda Kooser
Freelance writer Amanda C. Kooser covers gadgets and tech news with a twist for CNET. When not wallowing in weird gear and iPad apps for cats, she can be found tinkering with her 1956 DeSoto.
Amanda Kooser
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NASA astronaut Christina Koch went on a historic spacewalk along with Jessica Meir on Oct. 18.

NASA

You're living the dream. You're a NASA astronaut. You're on the International Space Station. You just went on the first all-woman spacewalk on Friday. So what's next? The moon sure looks nice.

NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir participated in a Monday media Q&A session from orbit on the ISS to talk about the historic spacewalk. 

When asked about her next dream (after becoming an ISS astronaut), Meir said, "Another dream would be to go to the moon. That's always the image I had from the very first drawing I did when I said I wanted to be an astronaut in the first grade."

NASA has an ambitious plan to send the first woman and the next man to the moon by 2024 through its Artemis program. That's a timeline that is very dependent on both funding and the pace of development of the rocket system designed to send astronauts to our lunar neighbor.

"Of course it would be a dream of mine and has been my entire life," said Koch of going to the moon. "But for now I will just settle for knowing that I will probably at least know the first woman to walk on the moon." 

Koch said she didn't know how the selection process would work, but that every NASA astronaut is extremely qualified.

Koch and Meir are close friends and come from the same astronaut class of 2013. There's a chance that friendship could extend all the way to the moon. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine suggested in August the space agency would consider an all-female crew for Artemis.

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