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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
After completing more than two years of basic training, the six women and seven men were chosen from a record-breaking 18,000 applicants representing a wide variety of backgrounds and specialties, from experienced pilots to scientists, engineers and doctors.
The group includes two candidates from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), which has participated in a joint training program with the US since 1983. "They are the best of the best: they are highly qualified and very diverse, and they represent all of America," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. They include five people of color, including the first Iranian-American astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli who flew combat missions in Afghanistan and holds an engineering degree from MIT.
The group, known as the "Turtles", wore blue flight jumpsuits and took turns approaching the podium to receive their astronaut pins, as one of their classmates paid tribute to their character and shared playful and heartfelt anecdotes.
After being selected in 2017, the class completed training in spacewalking at NASA's underwater Neutral Buoyancy Lab, robotics, the systems of the International Space Station, piloting the T-38 training jet and Russian language lessons.
They are the first to graduate since NASA announced the Artemis program to return to the Moon by 2024, this time on its south pole, as the US plans to place the next man and first woman on lunar soil and set up an orbital space station.
-- submitted from IRC
Related: Eyeing Moon, NASA hosts first public astronaut graduation ceremony
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13 2020, @04:52PM
Looks like a young enthusiastic group.
No doubt, class balancing for PC was part of the selection criteria, but I suspect NASA is perfectly capable of picking an extraordinary group with this additional constraint.
Hopefully,the group will do well and be pathfinders for a 'right stuff' V2.0
The interesting question is what will they get to do?
Aside from ISS missions with the Russians, I'd hope the first thing is a manned flight with Space-X.
I'd say with Boeing, but with a second manned option available, there is no national need to rush things there, so they should be able to complete their unmanned testing first.
The interesting question there is on who's nickel?
Seems like that should depend on the outcome of the investigation.
Why wasn't the problem caught in testing before the launch?
Boeing engineers supposedly know how to make good stuff. If this was short circuited by Wall Street, then that would seem to answer the funding question.
OTOH, if a transparent review shows no reasonable way to prevent it...