NASA selects 10 new astronauts as it chases bold plans for the moon and Mars

By Jackie Wattles, CNN

(CNN) — NASA on Monday introduced the 10 people — selected from a pool of 8,000 applicants — who will join the agency’s astronaut corps as it races to return to the moon before attempting an unprecedented crewed mission to Mars.

The group includes six women and four men, whom acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy called “America’s best and brightest.”

“And we’re going to need America’s best and brightest (for) all our exploration plans for the future,” Duffy said. “We are going back to the moon. … And I’ll just tell you this, I’ll be damned if the Chinese beat NASA or beat America back to the moon.”

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.

This astronaut class marks the first in which there are more women than men, according to NASA.

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 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, also included the first spacewalk carried out by the private sector.

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.

Jones, the Air Force major from Illinois, said Menon is already being peppered with questions from her classmates.

“She’s so gracious,” Jones said. “We’re going to be leaning on her expertise; she just has an amazing story of what she’s been able to accomplish and is just so proficient and incredible.”

Jones added that, for him, becoming an astronaut has been a lifelong pursuit — in part because Space Shuttle-era NASA astronaut Dale Gardner hailed from the same tiny town.

“Every 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,” Jones told CNN. “That kind of gave me the thought: Even someone from a small town could go out and do something like this.”

Each class of incoming astronauts receives a special nickname selected by the prior class. The 2021 group — dubbed the “Flies” in part as a nod to how rapidly the class was likely to be assigned to and flown on missions to orbit — will bestow this group’s nickname.

“On 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,” said NASA astronaut Chris Birch.

The path ahead

The 10 new astronauts will spend the next two years in intensive training, during which they will “learn NASA’s history and our vision for the future, they will take classes in geology and in water survival and space health,” said Stephen Koerner, the deputy director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

“They even get to train in our high-performance jets,” Koerner added.

Once training is completed, the new class will join the 48 other members of the space agency’s 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.

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.

For two decades, the ISS has been the only in-space destination for NASA astronauts to visit.

While Norman Knight, director of NASA flight operations, said during Monday’s news conference that “many of these candidates sitting here today will have the opportunity to visit” the ISS, he emphasized that space station is supposed to serve as a learning laboratory for more difficult missions deeper into space.

“Every lesson learned aboard station has paved the way of where we’re headed: next to the moon — this time to stay — and on to Mars,” he said.

It’s 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.

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 — where no human has yet traveled.

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