NASA today named the 24th class of astronauts since the Mercury 7 in 1959, including the first person to have been to Earth orbit before becoming an astronaut. The class was chosen out of a pool of more than 8,000 applicants after an extended recruitment process that began in March 2024.
The space agency on Monday introduced the four men and six women who comprise its 2025 trainee class during a ceremony held at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Following two years of basic training, the new candidates will be eligible for mission assignments in low-Earth orbit and on the Moon, as NASA's Artemis program works toward sending the first humans to Mars.
"We picked the best and the brightest, the most skilled, the best looking, the best personalities to take these 10 spots," said Sean Duffy, acting NASA administrator and secretary of transportation. "You are America's best and brightest, and we're going to need America's best and brightest because we have a bold exploration plans for the future."
In addition to Sean Duffy, NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya and Vanessa Wyche, director of the Johnson Space Center, also spoke at the event.
NASA's 24th class of astronaut candidates ("ascans") at Johnson Space Center
in Houston at their announcement ceremony on Monday, September 22, 2025.
Credit: collectSPACE.com
They will next undergo lessons in orbital mechanics, basic spacecraft systems, spacewalking skills, robotics control, and other disciplines needed for spaceflight. Upon their graduation in 2028, they will become members of NASA's astronaut corps, which has 41 active members as of Monday.
...
Given plans to retire the International Space Station in 2030, the new ascans may be too late to visit that complex, but they could launch to commercial orbital platforms that are under early development today. They could also be sent on missions to land at the Moon's south pole, with the first Artemis lunar landing targeted for mid-2027 at the earliest.
I personally don't see any problems using a term like Senator Ted Cruz talks about here but a few things come to mind. First and foremost, I'm an old guy, while this class is six women and four men, all of whom are not just at the "best of the best" levels, but all of them are closer to 40 years old than 22-ish, just out of college. Based on having worked with some really good women engineers, I assume that like those women I worked with, they're not without a sense of humor.
"Now I recognize that these guys are capable of pulling out a can of whoop ass, but I would humbly suggest next time, maybe we go with a different name than 'ascan' [pronounced 'ass-can,' short for astronaut candidate], like the collective branding can come up with something suitable to the occasion," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said at the event.
NASA's 2025 astronaut class portraits: Ben Bailey, Lauren Edgar, Adam Fuhrmann, Cameron Jones, Yuri Kubo, Rebecca Lawler, Anna Menon, Imelda Muller, Erin Overcash, and Katherine Spies. Credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel (Note: short biographies of all of them here)
In case she isn't immediately familiar to you, the one "ascan" who has actually flown in orbit before is Anna Menon, bottom row, second from the left. Anna was one of the four to fly on the Polaris Dawn mission, the private, crewed mission to do the first space walks ever by "civilians" and flew the farthest from Earth than any mission since the end of the Apollo program. That mission was in a Crew Dragon, commanded by Jared Isaacman, and while Anna was the medical officer on that mission, she was listed as being a SpaceX Engineer.
Congratulations to all 10 of the class. I have to say that at this point, it looks like they're not likely to fly to the International Space Station; at least, not all of them. There are other alternatives possible, and Artemis, of course, is really the emphasis of what was talked about.
I'm disappointed. Where are the blacks, muslims and illegal aliens? Not to mention the trans.
ReplyDeleteI am 82 YO and I worked in data processing in private and government sectors. I started out repairing computers at a time when most people had no idea what a computer was. I moved over to the programming of them and I programmed every language, including machine language, and every computer including the best and fastest super computers. I worked in a federal office that included 1200 "programmers" and one day walked into a room that had 4 or 5 keypunch machines and a card reader for one of the computer systems and a black man was standing there looking lost. He was a "programmer" GS 11. He couldn't remember how to put the IBM cards into the reader!! He was feeding them in upside down and the machine was stopping. Women, mixed bag. Some were ok, at least they knew how to run a card reader, most were out of their league and if their job depended on competence they would be working in the coffee shop. White men too. One guy who had a desk in one of those huge rooms full of desks would nod off to sleep everyday. He would happily work on a project if his boss gave him one but mostly he was just waiting for retirement. Indians! I mean Indians from India here on a H1B visa taking Americans jobs were no better. Nice people, I enjoyed working with them and enjoyed going to lunch with them at Indian restaurants but they were not particularly smart. What set them apart was: They would work 80 hours a week, they would all work together to solve a problem or get the job done, they would ask for help if they needed it, and most importantly they had an Indian co-worker who was there for no other reason than to crack the whip and keep them in line. He was older, tough, knew nothing, zip, nada about computers but he would drive all his H1B crew ruthlessly to get the job done. Around upper or middle management he was silent and reclusive, but when they were gone he was the boss.
My point? Good, really good programmers were rare, never female, never a minority and rarely promoted or self promoting. The handful of people who were capable and got things done were almost never acknowledged. They WERE the ones called in a 1:00 AM because at some level everyone knew that one or two people that could get the job done correctly and quickly. But it was never a female, minority or H1B worker.
The other side of that coin was those who "climbed" to the top or at least to management. They were typically females, minorities and rarely H1B workers. They couldn't do the work but they would self promote their way into their highest level of incompetence where they would struggle to not screw everything up.
So that is why I'm suspicious of 6 out of ten ascans being female. DEI under other names has been around for a long time and has only succeeded in promoting fools and rejecting competence. The hidden figures were never black women. There! I've said it. What we all know and always knew.
Peter Principle.
DeleteLakiesha Hawkins, acting deputy associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA says Artemis is ready to go around the moon February 2026. They plan to send astronauts.
ReplyDelete