improve its equity and inclusion initiatives<\/a> at the personal, educational, and institutional levels.<\/p>\n\u201cI think it\u2019s valuable to show that anybody can be an astronaut if they\u2019ve got the skills, and the determination,\u201d said Dr. Scott Hubbard, who served as the Director at NASA\u2019s Ames Research Center. \u201cThere are probably 20,000 people that applied at the last offering for an opening to be an astronaut and out of that, a very small number get selected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under Trump\u2019s recent crusade against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, these initiatives were under threat. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very glad that since these four astronauts were selected during the Biden administration, that this administration did not choose to change the selection,\u201d Hubbard said.<\/p>\n
Glover is joined by three other astronauts: the mission Commander Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Mission Specialists Jeremy Hansen. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think having a diverse crew is very important, especially for younger kids watching this,\u201d said May Bailey, a USC second-year studying civil engineering. \u201cI feel like astronauts are something a lot of kids say they want to be when they grow up, and seeing diversity \u2013 seeing yourself \u2013 be able to do that, is a good thing.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a remarkable moment,\u201d said Andrew Lu, a law student. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a historical moment. I think there are a lot of firsts still left in space exploration, but I\u2019m just really excited for how we get to this next frontier.\u201d <\/p>\n
Morgan Charles, a junior majoring in economics, echoed this idea of \u201cfirsts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s kind of sad that it\u2019s just now that the first black man reaches the moon,\u201d said Charles. \u201cI think it definitely took too long, but I\u2019m glad that it\u2019s happening now.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Artemis II mission is expected to last 10 days, with those on Earth awaiting the crew\u2019s safe return home. <\/p>\n
Although six other missions have previously put astronauts on the moon, Hubbard said that does not limit Glover\u2019s contribution.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpace has always been seen as a badge of accomplishment,\u201d Hubbard said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An astronaut from Southern California is making history as the first Black person to land on the moon.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[105999,3923,109104,7,9,8,18154,11482,3098,109102],"class_list":["post-248163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-artemis-ii","tag-black","tag-black-astronaut","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-dei","tag-moon","tag-nasa","tag-victor-glover"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}