{"id":79115,"date":"2021-12-05T22:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-06T07:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/nasas-10-new-astronauts-pilots-doctor-physicist-cyclist\/"},"modified":"2021-12-05T22:30:00","modified_gmt":"2021-12-06T07:30:00","slug":"nasas-10-new-astronauts-pilots-doctor-physicist-cyclist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/nasas-10-new-astronauts-pilots-doctor-physicist-cyclist\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA&#8217;s 10 new astronauts: pilots, doctor, physicist, cyclist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><ins><strong>By Marcia Dunn<\/strong><\/ins><\/p>\n<p><ins><em>AP Aerospace Writer<\/em><\/ins><\/p>\n<p>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. &mdash; NASA selected 10 new astronauts Monday, half of them military pilots, as it looks ahead to the moon and Mars.<\/p>\n<p>The space agency introduced the six men and four women during a ceremony in Houston, home to Mission Control and the astronaut corps.<\/p>\n<p>More than 12,000 applied for the coveted spots. The 10 selected are in their 30s and 40s, and face two years of training before becoming eligible for spaceflight.<\/p>\n<p>Besides the combat and test pilots, the astronaut candidates include a medical physicist, drilling specialist, maritime roboticist, NASA-turned-SpaceX flight surgeon and bioengineer who was a champion cyclist. Two astronauts from the United Arab Emirates will train with them.<\/p>\n<p>One of the pilots &mdash; Air Force Maj. Marcos Berrios, who&rsquo;s from Puerto Rico &mdash; volunteered during a question-and-answer session to fly a life-size successor to NASA&rsquo;s mini helicopter at Mars.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I know Deniz, the other helicopter pilot here, and I would love to take it for a spin for science,&rdquo; he said, drawing laughs and applause from the audience.<\/p>\n<p>Navy Lt. Deniz Burnham, an Alaskan, manages drilling projects throughout North America.<\/p>\n<p>NASA has accepted 360 people into its astronaut corps since the original Mercury Seven in 1959. The previous astronaut selection was in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>With SpaceX sending astronauts to the International Space Station and other private companies launching tourists on short rides, and NASA&rsquo;s Artemis moon-landing program on the horizon, &ldquo;we are in the golden age right now of human spaceflight,&rdquo; said NASA chief astronaut Reid Wiseman.<\/p>\n<p>NASA plans to put astronauts back on the moon no earlier than 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Alaskan is among those selected. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":792,"featured_media":79116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-79115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/792"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79115"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=79115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}