First person on Mars should be a woman, says NASA's chief astronaut trainer

While there have been several female astronauts, it turns out that only men have actually walked on the lunar surface. Now, if NASA’s astronaut training chief is to be believed, the first person to set foot on Mars should be a woman.

It's more than 40 years since NASA chose its first female astronaut but space exploration as a whole is still a male-dominated work environment.

According to Allison McIntyre, a senior NASA engineer at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, a dozen men have already walked on the moon.

Speaking to BBC Radion 5 Live, she said that her centre director is a woman, her former division chief is a woman, they have female astronauts, but they haven't put a woman on the moon yet.

“I think the first person on Mars should be a woman”, she said.

Female astronauts have been in to space, but far more men have been sent into orbit than women.

McIntyre heads up a division that puts potential astronauts through their paces in preparation for space exploration.

Other women working for NASA echoed the sentiment of Ms McIntyre.

Emily Nelson, a NASA flight director, said that it would just be a 'matter of time' before a woman reached Mars.