NASA Announces Eight New Astronauts Destined for Space--Half of Them Women

It's official. NASA has whittled down the amount of potential astronauts to a group of eight. These brave men and women will help the agency push the boundaries of space exploration and travel to new destinations in the solar system. Yet there's something unusual about this new class of astronauts--half of them are women.

The new candidates actually come from the second largest number of applications that NASA has ever received--more than 6,100. After extensive examination, the eight new astronauts were chosen for their willingness to go further than any astronauts before them. They demonstrated impressive strengths academically, operationally and physically. In addition, their diverse skill sets will contribute greatly to existing astronaut corps. The fact that four of them are women, though, is unusual.

Just this past Sunday, the world celebrated 50 years of women in space, marking the point when Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova first launched into orbit aboard the Vostok 6 capsule. Yet after Sally Ride became the first American woman in space 20 years later, only a little over 40 women have flown into orbit as NASA astronauts. In fact, only about ten percent of the people that have flown into space total are female, according to Space.com.  Yet the choice to include four women as part of the newest recruits shows a shift in the space agency.

Christina Hammock, Nicole Aunapu Mann, Anne McClain and Jessica Meir will join their male counterparts, Andrew Morgan, Josh Cassada, Victor Glover and Tyler Hague in training. They will begin in August at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, receiving a wide array of technical training in order to prepare for missions that take place anywhere from low-Earth orbit to Mars.

"These new space explorers asked to join NASA because they know we're doing big, bold things here--developing missions to go farther into space than ever before," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in a news release. "They're excited about the science we're doing in the International Space Station and our plan to launch from U.S. soil to there on spacecraft build by American companies. And they're ready to help lead the first human mission to an asteroid and then on to Mars."