NASA Introduces New Class of Astronauts

Yahoo! News ^ | 5/6/04 | Matthew Barakat - AP

[NormsRevenge]

CHANTILLY, Va. -

NASA (news - web sites) on Thursday introduced a new class of 11 astronauts, a group that includes three teachers who are giving up the classroom for the chance to fly into space.

The teachers, selected from a field of more than 1,000 applicants, will live, work and train with more than 100 other astronauts at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The new astronauts could be scheduled for space flights by 2009.

No teacher has flown on a shuttle since Christa McAuliffe, who died in the 1986 Challenger explosion. The teacher who served as McAuliffe's alternate on that flight, Barbara Morgan, has been training in Houston since 1998 and is scheduled for a 2006 space flight.

The introduction of the 11 astronauts comes as the space program is in flux, with shuttle missions grounded since Columbia disintegrated on re-entry last year. Shuttle flights will not resume until at least 2005, and the fleet will be permanently grounded in 2010 to redirect efforts for a return to the moon by 2020.

Despite the possibility of a protracted wait for the opportunity to join a flight, the new astronauts, who were introduced at the Smithsonian Institution (news - web sites)'s Air and Space Museum annex in Chantilly, said they couldn't pass up the chance.

"I'm standing in the right line at least," said Richard Arnold of Berlin, Md., who most recently taught at the American International School in Bucharest, Romania.

If things go well and astronauts indeed return to the moon by 2020, the astronauts in the current class could at that time be among the corps' most senior members, NASA spokeswoman Melissa Mathews said.

Arnold, who was in the process of submitting his application when Columbia broke apart, said he discussed the dangers with his wife and decided the risks were worth the reward.

"I've always encouraged my students to follow their dreams," he said. "I hope I'm setting the same example for my kids."

Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, 28, of Vancouver, Wash., first learned of NASA's teacher program as she searched the Internet seeking an answer to a student's question: "How do you go to the bathroom in space?"

While she said she has enjoyed teaching science at Hudson's Bay High School, she is "looking forward to teaching in a different way" through the educator-astronaut program.

Another new astronaut, Dr. Robert Satcher, will help NASA research why astronauts suffer bone and muscle degeneration during long periods in outer space. Satcher, 38, of Oak Park, Ill., is the nephew of former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher and an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

The new group of 11 is the smallest class of astronauts since the shuttle program began. They join a corps of about 100, officials said.

Last year, when the astronaut corps swelled to 144, the agency's inspector general warned too many astronauts were waiting around for their chance to fly, and that the agency was overly optimistic in its prediction of the number of future shuttle flights. The size of the corps has since dropped because of retirements and attrition.

Mathews said the new class takes the inspector general's finding into account, and provides a new mix of skills and specialties to round out the corps.

The other astronauts introduced Thursday were teacher Joseph Acaba, 36, of Dunnellon, Fla.; Thomas Marshburn, 43, of Houston; Navy Lt. Cmdr. Christopher Cassidy, 34, of Norfolk; Army Maj. R. Shane Kimbrough, 36, of Houston; Jose Hernandez, 41, of Houston; Shannon Walker, 38, of Houston; and pilots Air Force Maj. James Dutton, 35, of Eugene, Ore.; and Marine Corps Maj. Randolph Bresnik, 36, of San Diego.

[NormsRevenge]

On the Net:

www.nasa.gov

NASA (news - web sites) Administrator Sean O'Keefe, far left, applauds the new class of astronaut teachers, Thursday, May 6, 2004, at Space Day presented at the National Air and Space Museum-Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The Space Day celebration was to introduce a new class of astronauts, including the three educators, wearing blue, from left, Joseph Acaba of Dunellon M.S. in Dunnellon, Fla., Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger of Hudson's Bay H.S. in Vancouver, Wash. and Richard Arnold of of the American International School of Bucharest in Bucharest, Romania. (AP Photo/Linda Spillers)

[NormsRevenge]

Former astronaut and senator John Glenn, left, sits with Walkersville (Md.) Elementary School students Taylor Huddak, 9 and Emma Kidwell, 10, Thursday, May 6, 2004 at Space Day presented at the National Air and Space Museum-Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The Space Day celebration was to introduce a new class of astronauts, including three educators. (AP Photo/Linda Spillers)

[Brett66]

It's good time to get selected as an astronaut, if the presidents plan goes through, these astronauts could set foot on the moon.

[DoughtyOne]

Excellent. We now have 11 new potential victims placed in the hands of repeat offenders, who have neither acknowledged their complicity in job related deaths, or as a result changed anything markedly better than after the Challenger event.

I will not stand idly by as these feel good moments are allowed to eclipse events worthy of negligent manslaughter charges against those who had all the evidence they needed to avoid the latest calamity before and during the mission.

[texasflower]

Really? What do you plan to do?

[DoughtyOne]

Every time one of these feel-good moments is produced by NASA, I plan on whizing all over the press release. That's a far sight better than the outcome of their actions.