Get Task & Purpose in your inbox<\/p>\n
Sign up for Task & Purpose Today to get the latest in military news each morning.<\/p>\n
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jonny Kim \u2013 perhaps the most qualified person on the planet should a future space shuttle ever require a door gunner \u2013 is leaving NASA after nearly a decade to return to active duty with naval aviation training, the space exploration program has announced.<\/a><\/p>\n Along with his record as an astronaut with an eight-month tour in space under his belt, Kim began his military career as a Navy SEAL before attending Harvard Medical School to become a doctor and Navy flight surgeon. He also qualified as a Naval Aviator while on duty with NASA. Thursday marked his last day at NASA.<\/p>\n \u201cContributing to space exploration and serving NASA has been the honor of a lifetime,\u201d Kim said in a statement. \u201cThroughout my career, I\u2019ve learned that beyond the missions, the training, and the hardware, success always comes down to the people. They are our greatest asset, and leading with love and empathy is how we achieve the impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\tTop Stories This Week\t\t<\/p>\n Kim was selected as an astronaut in 2017. Last year, he spent eight months aboard the International Space Station with\u00a0 Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky. By the time he returned in December, Kim had orbited the Earth 3,920 times and traveled nearly 104 trillion miles.<\/p>\n NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that Kim\u2019s contributions aboard the International Space Station will help shape future missions \u201cfor decades to come.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJonny Kim represents the very best of NASA, a person who continually pushed the boundaries of exploration while inspiring countless others,\u201d Isaacman said in a statement. \u201cWe are grateful for his dedication to our nation and to the pursuit of knowledge, and we wish him success as he continues his service in the U.S. Navy.\u201d<\/p>\n Kim enlisted in the Navy in 2002, became a SEAL, and was later commissioned as an officer in 2012, according to his official NASA biography.<\/a>\u00a0 He completed more than 100 combat missions as a special operator, and his military awards include the Silver Star,<\/a> Bronze Star Medal with \u201cV\u201d device for valor, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Combat \u201cV,\u201d\u00a0 and Combat Action Ribbon.<\/p>\n While serving in Ramadi and Sadr City during his deployments to Iraq, Kim was inspired to become a doctor by the physicians he worked with, he told Task & Purpose for a 2020 story<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI made promises to a lot of the people that I lost, that I would spend the rest of my life doing something good, something positive for the world, because they left a void when they died, and I know that they would have been successful, making the world a better place had they lived,\u201d Kim said at the time.<\/p>\n While serving as an astronaut, Kim became a Navy aviator in 2023 when he completed his advanced helicopter training.<\/a>\u00a0 He said at the time that his training with night vision goggles was much different from his experience using similar optics as a SEAL.<\/p>\n