NASA on Monday introduced the 10 people \u2014 selected from a pool of 8,000 applicants \u2014 who will join the agency\u2019s astronaut corps as it races to return to the moon before attempting an unprecedented crewed mission to Mars.<\/p>\n
The group includes six women and four men, whom acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy called \u201cAmerica\u2019s best and brightest.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we\u2019re going to need America\u2019s best and brightest (for) all our exploration plans for the future,\u201d Duffy said. \u201cWe are going back to the moon. \u2026 And I\u2019ll just tell you this, I\u2019ll be damned if the Chinese beat NASA or beat America back to the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 10 inductees include Ben Bailey, a mechanical engineer and chief warrant officer 3 for the Army from Charlottesville, Virginia; Lauren Edgar, a geologist from Sammamish, Washington; Adam Fuhrmann, an aerospace engineer and Air Force major from Leesburg, Virginia; Cameron Jones, an aerospace engineer and Air Force major from Savanna, Illinois; Yuri Kubo, an electrical and computer engineer and former NASA worker and SpaceX launch director from Columbus, Indiana; Rebecca Lawler, a former lieutenant commander and test pilot in the Navy from Little Elm, Texas; Imelda Muller, a former Navy lieutenant and undersea medical officer from Copake Falls, New York; Erin Overcash, a lieutenant commander and test pilot in the Navy from Goshen, Kentucky; Katherine Spies, a design engineer and former Marine Corps test pilot from San Diego; and Anna Menon, a biomedical engineer and former SpaceX employee from Houston.<\/p>\n
This astronaut class marks the first in which there are more women than men, according to NASA.<\/p>\n
The agency also confirmed that Menon is the first person ever to join the NASA astronaut corps who has previously flown to orbit. While working at SpaceX, Menon was selected by tech billionaire Jared Isaacman to join him on Polaris Dawn, an experimental mission that traveled higher in its orbit around Earth than any crewed spacecraft had flown in decades. The mission, conducted last year<\/a> aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, also included the first spacewalk carried out by the private sector.<\/p>\n Menon will join her husband, Anil Menon, in the astronaut corps. Anil is also a former SpaceX employee, and he was chosen for the NASA astronaut corps during the last round of selections in 2021.<\/p>\n Jones, the Air Force major from Illinois, said Menon is already being peppered with questions from her classmates.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s so gracious,\u201d Jones said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be leaning on her expertise; she just has an amazing story of what she\u2019s been able to accomplish and is just so proficient and incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n Jones added that, for him, becoming an astronaut has been a lifelong pursuit \u2014 in part because Space Shuttle-era NASA astronaut Dale Gardner hailed from the same tiny town.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time I walked by the trophy case in high school, there was his picture with a flag that he flew while he was in space,\u201d Jones told CNN. \u201cThat kind of gave me the thought: Even someone from a small town could go out and do something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n Each class of incoming astronauts receives a special nickname selected by the prior class. The 2021 group \u2014 dubbed the \u201cFlies\u201d in part as a nod to how rapidly the class was likely to be assigned to and flown on missions to orbit \u2014 will bestow this group\u2019s nickname.<\/p>\n \u201cOn behalf of all the Flies, we look forward to getting to know your class so we can give you a name befitting your personalities and appropriate for the exciting and dynamic time,\u201d said NASA astronaut Chris Birch.<\/p>\n The path ahead<\/p>\n The 10 new astronauts will spend the next two years in intensive training, during which they will \u201clearn NASA\u2019s history and our vision for the future, they will take classes in geology and in water survival and space health,\u201d said Stephen Koerner, the deputy director of NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center.<\/p>\n \u201cThey even get to train in our high-performance jets,\u201d Koerner added.<\/p>\n Once training is completed, the new class will join the 48 other members of the space agency\u2019s astronaut corps and become eligible for flight assignments. And that could be a different experience than those picked during the last selection round in 2021.<\/p>\n At that time, NASA still had a decade of International Space Station operations ahead. But now, the space agency is preparing to wind down activity at the orbiting laboratory by the early 2030s and commission new space stations operated by the private sector.<\/p>\n For two decades, the ISS has been the only in-space destination for NASA astronauts to visit.<\/p>\n While Norman Knight, director of NASA flight operations, said during Monday\u2019s news conference that \u201cmany of these candidates sitting here today will have the opportunity to visit\u201d the ISS, he emphasized that space station is supposed to serve as a learning laboratory for more difficult missions deeper into space.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery lesson learned aboard station has paved the way of where we\u2019re headed: next to the moon \u2014 this time to stay \u2014 and on to Mars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear what other flight assignments these astronauts may be eligible for. NASA is likely to tap more experienced astronauts for moon missions. The agency has already selected a group of veteran fliers for Artemis II, a test mission that will fly around the moon as soon as next year.<\/p>\n But NASA officials did indicate that they hope the young group of astronauts selected on Monday may be eligible for flights later in the Artemis program to the moon and perhaps even to Mars \u2014 where no human has yet traveled.<\/p>\n