Imagine that you’re an astronaut preparing to go into space. What essential things are on your packing list? A camera, perhaps, to take photos of the Earth from 380,000 feet. A toothbrush. A couple of changes of comfortable clothes (because you’ve got to have something on under that spacesuit).

What you probably won’t bother packing is your make-up bag, given that you’re about to go on an incredibly physically and mentally demanding mission that in no way depends on whether you’ve filled in your eyebrows. But apparently, NASA engineers in the Seventies had rather different ideas about what women astronauts would need in space.

The NASA History Office shared a photo on its official Twitter feed this week, showing a space make-up bag that engineers designed for female astronauts in 1978. It’s not a million miles away from a roll-up toiletry bag that you might take on holiday today, with sections inside to hold powder blush, mascara, a few pencils, a lipstick and eye make-up remover.

The overall effect is rather Glossier-chic. But it’s also – you know – ridiculous.

NASA engineers genuinely thought women astronauts would need make-up in space