“For the first time in NASA history, half of the newest astronaut class is female! Christina Hammock Koch, Nicole Aunapu Mann, Anne McClain, and Jessica Meir began the intensive selection process and training over two years ago, and now they’ve officially joined NASA’s astronaut corps. The four, along with their four male counterparts, were selected from a pool of over 6,000 applicants. The newly minted astronauts will join the 58 other women who have ever traveled beyond Earth’s atmosphere and, most excitingly, they may even be the first humans to set foot on Mars.
After being accepted into the training program in 2013, they embarked on a year-and-a-half-long application process that includes intensive physical and psychological tests. Their extensive training program covers everything from piloting supersonic jets to practicing spacewalks underwater to testing the feeling of weightlessness on the infamous “vomit comet” airplane flight. In addition, they studied robotics, space station mechanics, and other specialized hardware and science courses required to ensure that astronauts can handle any maintenance or emergency repairs while on the International Space Station or on other craft that will travel to deeper space.
“We never determine how many people of each gender we’re going to take, but these were the most qualified people of the ones that we interviewed,” explains Janet Kavandi, the deputy director of NASA’s Glenn Research Center.
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