NASA should consider sending up an all-female crew when it is ready for the first manned mission to Mars, one expert claimed in her first-hand account of a simulated mission.

In an article for Slate.com, science writer Kate Greene wrote that she and five other people lived in a simulated Mars camp on a Hawaii volcano for a NASA-funded project dubbed HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation), where she discovered that an all-female crew could create big savings for NASA.

Despite exercising roughly the same amount, the three female crew members required less than half the calories the three male crew members did — 1,475 per day compared to 3,450 for the men, she wrote. As a result, a crew with mostly men would have to carry more food and consequently a larger payload with them, requiring more fuel to launch it into orbit and providing less space aboard ship to the crew.

Since a manned flight to Mars would cost in the range of $100 billion, Greene argued that even small changes could create large savings, and a crew of smaller astronauts could significantly drive down that price tag. And, since there is no evidence to suggest that a female crew member would be a downgrade from a similarly trained male crew member, there’s no reason not to choose the lighter option, she wrote.

She noted there are downsides: manned flights to space tend to be symbolic, and leaving off representatives of half the population would put off some and perhaps undermine support for such missions. Greene also wrote that crews benefit from diversity and the opportunity to learn other problem-solving approaches, something that might be lacking on an all-female crew, but added that “if the bottom line is … getting to Mars, the more women the better.”