NASA has introduced its newest astronaut selections for the next era of space exploration.
At a special event at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Monday, the American space agency unveiled the 10 individuals who beat off competition from around 8,000 applicants.
Notably, the intake for the first time includes more women than men, and one member of the group, Anna Menon, has already been to orbit as part of a private mission, marking another first first. Menon flew with billionaire Jared Isaacman on the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission last year, which made history with the first-ever private spacewalk.
Aged from 34 to 40, one or more of this year’s intake could be among the first humans to visit the moon as part of the NASA’s Artemis program. The first of the missions to return humans to the moon for the first time in five decades is Artemis III, which is currently scheduled to launch no earlier than 2027, though that date could slip. Some of these astronauts could even fly to Mars on the first human mission to the red planet.
Acting NASA chief Sean Duffy welcomed the all-American group.
“I’m honored to welcome the next generation of American explorers to our agency,” Duffy said. “More than 8,000 people applied — scientists, pilots, engineers, dreamers from every corner of this nation. The 10 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.”
Announced every four years or so, the agency’s latest astronaut class — the 24th in its history — reported for duty at NASA Johnson last week to start two years of intense training.
NASA said the curriculum includes “instruction and skills development for complex operations aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Artemis missions to the moon, and beyond. Specifically, training includes robotics, land and water survival, geology, foreign language, space medicine and physiology, and more, while also conducting simulated spacewalks and flying high-performance jets.”
Once they’ve graduated, the 2025 class will join the agency’s active astronaut corps and wait for placements on ISS and Artemis missions.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.