{"id":179881,"date":"2025-09-25T02:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T02:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/179881\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T02:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T02:32:10","slug":"nasa-selects-three-mass-college-alumni-among-astronaut-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/179881\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA selects three Mass. college alumni among astronaut candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the ceremony, Fuhrmann said he had \u201cexcitement and just extreme gratitude for the opportunity\u201d to join the NASA team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just in disbelief,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Spies said she was excited to learn the \u201clanguage of human spaceflight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The candidates will complete two years of training before becoming eligible for flight assignments to low Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars, according to a press release issued Monday by NASA.<\/p>\n

It is the 24th astronaut class for NASA since the original Mercury Seven made their debut in 1959. The previous class was in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, our mission propels us even further as we prepare for our next giant leap,\u201d Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA Johnson, said in the release. \u201cRepresenting America\u2019s best and brightest, this astronaut candidate class will usher in the golden age of innovation and exploration as we push toward the Moon and Mars.\u201d<\/p>\n

The eight other candidates are Chief Warrant Officer Ben Bailey, Air Force Major Cameron Jones, Anna Menon, Navy Lieutenant Commander Erin Overcash, Lauren Edgar, Yuri Kubo, and Rebecca Lawler. <\/p>\n

Acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy presided over the ceremony, held at the agency\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ten men and women sitting here today embody the truth that in America, regardless of where you start, there is no limit to what a determined dreamer can achieve – even going to space,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Maj. Fuhrmann, a 35-year-old Air Force test pilot, holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in aerospace engineering from MIT, according to NASA\u2019s release. <\/p>\n

\"USUS Air Force Maj. Adam Fuhrmann, who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011.NASA<\/p>\n

While at MIT, he was a member of an Air Force ROTC detachment and served as a student leader at the Bernard M. Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program, according to an article in MIT News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are tremendously proud of Adam for this notable accomplishment, and we look forward to following his journey through astronaut candidate school and beyond,\u201d Leo McGonagle, the program\u2019s founding and executive editor, said in the article.<\/p>\n

According to the article, Fuhrmann asked McGonagle, himself a former US Army Lt. Colonel, to administer his oath of commissioning into the US Air Force.<\/p>\n

Fuhrmann, a native of Leesburg, Virginia, logged 400 combat hours flying fighter jets in Afghanistan, according to NASA\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

At the time of his selection, he was serving as the director of operations for an Air Force flight test unit, according to NASA.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to try to bring some of that experience to do the same thing with the NASA team and learn from everyone at Johnson Space Center how to apply those lessons to human spaceflight,\u201d Fuhrmann said at the ceremony.<\/p>\n

Muller, a 34-year-old anesthesiologist from Copake Falls, New York, earned her bachelor\u2019s degree in behavioral neuroscience from Northeastern University, according to NASA.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.Dr. Imelda Muller, who graduated from Northeastern in 2013.NASA<\/p>\n

After earning her medical degree from the University of Vermont in 2017, Muller served as a lieutenant in the US Navy, providing medical support during dive training at NASA\u2019s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, the agency said.<\/p>\n

At the time of her selection, Muller was completing a residency in anesthesia at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, according to NASA.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe future of space medicine is now,\u201d she said during the ceremony. \u201cI\u2019m incredibly honored to be here with this team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spies, a 43-year-old native of San Diego, earned a master\u2019s degree in design engineering from Harvard University, NASA said.<\/p>\n

She is a former Marine Corps helicopter pilot and experimental test pilot, with more than 2,000 flight hours in more than 30 different aircraft, according to the agency. <\/p>\n

At the time of her selection, she was the director of flight test engineering at Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, according to NASA.<\/p>\n

\"KatherineKatherine Spies earned her master’s degree from Harvard in 2019. NASA<\/p>\n

Truman Dickerson can be reached at truman.dickerson@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the ceremony, Fuhrmann said he had \u201cexcitement and just extreme gratitude for the opportunity\u201d to join the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-179881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}