Yesterday at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, NASA officially introduced eight new astronaut candidates. They were selected from more than 6,100 applicants in a process that lasted over a year. Their names were already announced about two months ago but yesterday there was their official introduction along with the last version of NASA’s Global Exploration Roadmap (GER).

The astronaut candidate of class 2013 are:

Tyler N. Hague (Nick). 37, is a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and also an aircraft pilot.

Andrew R. Morgan. 37, is a U.S. Army major graduated at the Military Academy at West Point with a doctorate in medicine.

Jessica U. Meir. 35, graduated from Brown University and the International Space University, she obtained a doctorate at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She’s an assistant professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

Christina M. Hammock. 34, graduated from North Carolina State University, she worked as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Station Chief in American Samoa.

Nicole Aunapu Mann. 35, is a major in the Marine Corps and F/A 18 pilot.

Josh A. Cassada. 39, is a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and fighter pilot with a training in physics.

Anne C. McClain. 34, is Major, U.S. Army graduated at the Military Academy at West Point and an OH-58 helicopter pilot.

Victor J. Glover. 37, is a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and F/A 18 pilot.

These new astronaut candidates are for the most part military, but there are also some civilians who will have a key role in the scientific research carried out during space missions they’ll be part of.

For all of them, this is just the beginning of a training that will last about two years that will prepare them for possible missions in orbit but also for asteroids and Mars. These are in fact the ultimate goals of NASA, briefly explained yesterday by administrator Charles Bolden and explained in detail in a guide (the file is in PDF format with a size of about 5.8 MB).

The new version of NASA’s Global Exploration Roadmap contains no surprises. In fact, it’s merely putting together information on all the missions planned for the coming years, but also on those that NASA is trying to develop. It’s clear that the missions that require to send astronauts beyond low Earth orbit are long-term goals based among other things on the development of the Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft, so much that they’re talking about 2030 and even beyond.

One of the main problems for NASA is its budget. Clearly, the budget for the military and for the surveillance of citizens have priority and are vastly greater than those for space missions. Hoping that there will still be some money to give to NASA, I wish good luck to the new astronauts!

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