NASA’s newest class of astronauts has unprecedented opportunities: two new commercially developed spacecraft designed to travel to the International Space Station, as well as a third capsule that will take astronauts to the moon.
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It has been a dramatic change in 10 years in which the only way for Americans to reach space was to intercept a ride on a Russian rocket.
SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft successfully launched in May; Boeing is working to get its Starliner capsule ready for a full crew flight sometime in 2021, and NASA hopes Lockheed Martin’s Orion spacecraft will fly around the moon by 2023.
Every effort by N the-member NASA Astronaut Corps in Houston, Texas, is greatly appreciated. While the class selected from a pool of 18,000 applicants this year, like its predecessor, is full of military officers and respected scientists, how they got the assignments remains a mystery – even to former astronauts.
Leroy Chiao told the Washington Post earlier this week that the choice was “mysterious from the inside out.”
A former NASA astronaut said: “In the astronaut office we were told that the more mysterious thing than being selected in the crew was how you were selected as an astronaut in the first place.”
On Wednesday, May 27, Nile A headed for Pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley, left and Robert Behnken wave as they exit the Armstrong Operations and Checkout building. , 2020. (AP Photo / John Roux)
A NASA official told the Post that a number of factors were taken into account when assigning the flight, but did not go into detail, saying the decision was “employee matters.”
The newspaper said one of the reasons NASA plays its cards around the chest is because of the public interest, including the interests of legislators on Capitol Hill and partisanship.
In addition, U.S. Interagency animosity in the military tends to teamwork on dangerous sports and the personality of the astronaut office fee champion.
While experience and skills are of paramount importance, the deciding factor is what will make the mission the most successful.
The post describes the International Space Station as “a kind of flight to Gilligan Island,” where everyone has to bring their own personal skills. Diverse backgrounds help in the learning process for both experienced astronauts and recruits.
Jim Bridenstein, a former member of Congress and today responsible for the progress being made to benefit astronaut corps, has led a full-fledged campaign to raise the profile of his agency.
“I prefer to watch kids grow up, maybe rather than wanting to be like a professional sports star, I want them to grow up wanting to be NASA astronauts, or NASA scientists,” Bridenstein said in 2018.
He is now overseeing the largest assignment since Apollo: the crew for the first flights to the moon in nearly 50 years.
Bridenstein aims to send “the first man and the first woman” by 2024; Though unlikely, it is an accelerated timeline set by the White House.
In 2023, Bridenstein plans to send astronauts to lunar orbit.
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“When we select the astronauts who will fly, they should be a reflection of the whole nation,” Brydenstein said in an interview. “It’s about motivation. We want every American to be able to see what these American heroes do to themselves. “
