Barbie's Astronaut Adventure: NASA Celebrates Iconic Doll's Space Journey

As the craze behind Greta Gerwig‘s film Barbie surges, NASA on Sunday reminisced about the time Barbie first became an astronaut.

What Happened: Two years after the first woman went to space, Barbie became an astronaut with her Miss Astronaut silver spacesuit in 1965. It would be more years before Neil Armstrong walked on Moon or over a decade before NASA accepted women astronauts.

“Yay, space! Barbie became an astronaut in 1965. Since then, we’ve partnered with @ISS_CASIS to send Barbies to the @Space_Station as part of our larger effort to encourage girls to explore science and engineering,” NASA wrote. The post was adjoined by an image of two Barbie dolls floating in microgravity in front of a window on the International Space Station (ISS).

It took NASA and Barbie another half a century after donning the outfit to actually fly out to space. Barbie’s first visit to the ISS was last year as part of Mission DreamStar, a collaboration between Barbie-parent Mattel Inc MAT and the ISS National Lab. DreamStar was a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education project using space to inspire girls.

Why It Matters: Soviet cosmonaut Valentina V. Tereshkova was the first woman to venture to space. She launched aboard the Vostok 6 spacecraft in June 1963, completed a three-day mission and became the first woman to orbit Earth. It took another 13 years until 1978 for NASA to select female astronauts and about 20 years for another woman to reach space.

The first American to make it to space was Sally K Ride who spent seven days aboard space shuttle Challenger during the STS-7 mission in 1983.

According to NASA records, 72 women have flown in space as of March 2023.

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