It is a gigantic and pale moon, with the American flag in the background, that welcomes the 13 new astronauts graduated from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston on stage. A spectacular setting worthy of the great occasions to underline a "historical" event, as the chief administrator of the American space agency Jim Bridenstine defines it: because this is the ceremony that celebrates the first class of astronauts who graduated under the Artemis program of the NASA, which will bring the man back to the moon with the first woman in 2024.
The 13 new NASA astronauts, a mission to the moon in their future (source: NASA)
"Concentration, commitment and dedication out of the ordinary" distinguish the new 13 levers, young people "ready to take humanity into the unknown by going where no one has ever been", says Bridenstine citing not only the Moon but also Mars.
They renamed it as the 'turtles' class, made up of seven men and six women. There are 11 NASA candidates (Kayla Barron, Zena Cardman, Raja Chari, Matthew Dominick, Bob Hines, Warren Hoburg, Jonny Kim, Jasmin Moghbeli, Loral O'Hara, Francisco Rubio, Jessica Watkins) and two from the Canadian Space Agency (Joshua Kutryk and Jennifer Sidey-Gibbons).
The 13 new NASA astronauts (source: NASA)
Entering the school in 2017 after a very hard selection (only NASA received over 18,000 applications for participation), the 13 aspiring astronauts have a very varied background: engineering studies are the masters, but there are also medicine, mathematics, biology , geology and international relations, demonstrating how much space exploration requires an increasingly multidisciplinary preparation.
The 13 new NASA astronauts, a mission to the moon in their future (source: NASA)
In the two years of training, the 'turtles' have studied subjects such as the extravehicular activities that astronauts perform outside the International Space Station (ISS), its operating mechanisms, the activities of the various centers of NASA, robotics and Russian. Completed the preparation, now they can finally pin the astronauts' pin on their chests, a tangible sign of their suitability to be selected to fly in space and participate "in any type of mission: in low orbit, on the Space Station, on the Moon, on Mars or any other destination, "says Bridenstine. "Take a moment to be proud of yourself and the road you have taken: we are proud of you, the destination is definitely worth the wait", comments astronaut Jessica Meir in her greeting message from ISS.
