Welcome to Generation Change. I'm Babita Sharma.

And in this episode, the BBC's gender and diversity correspondent,

Megamohan, finds out if a new generation of scientists,

technologists, mathematicians and engineers can draw from the talents of everyone

and design a world for men and women of all backgrounds.

10, 9, 8, 7. We have a go for Maynogen stone. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and lift off. Lift off with a space shuttle

Columbia, head of building scientific knowledge, microgravity research.

I hear you loud and clear. We hear you loud and clear, actually.

Welcome to the International Space Station. Flying never, ever got boring. It's so delightful.

It is living the life of Peter Pan. This is Katie Coleman, chemist, mother, pilot, musician,

and a retired NASA astronaut who's logged over 4,000 hours in space.

I loved waking up in the morning and realizing that I was still there.

And I would, you know, unzip my sleeping bag, open the door, fly through the lab,

hook a right to go into the bathroom and brush my teeth and everything.

And, you know, five minutes after I woke up, I could be at work.

It's been more than five decades since human spaceflight.

Of the 556 people who've rocketed into orbit, nearly 90% of them were men.

In 2020, the United Arab Emirates launched a space probe to Mars.

The program is led by Sarah Elmeri, 80% of the science team on the Emirates Mars mission are women, 80%.

80%. 80%. We actually started off with 100% woman team. So we, I had to look for more men to join the team.

And Andrea Gertz became the first female astronomer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for physics.

I mean, at every stage of my academic and professional evolution, somebody has said no or you can't,

...