Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
One of the first Americans to set foot on Mars may have made his or her debut as an astronaut candidate on Sept. 22, according to Sean Duffy.
The acting administrator for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) revealed that possibility as he took part in the unveiling ceremony of the 24th and latest class of what NASA called “all-American” astronaut candidates.
“One of these 10 could actually be one of the first Americans to put their boots on the Mars surface,” Duffy said.
Four men and six women were chosen from a pool of 8,000 applicants. Their background varied from test pilot to anesthesiologist, but according to Duffy, they all exemplified American excellence and the American dream. He codified earlier remarks that these men and women would further America’s golden age of exploration.
“There’s nothing that embodies the American dream more than the 10 of you today having these spots,” he said to the candidates. “I know it was hard work, a lot of effort, a lot of studying, a lot of training for you to win these spots at NASA, but you truly—today—are living the American dream.”
The Test Pilots
Like the original Mercury Seven astronauts that came before them, six of NASA’s latest 10 candidates served as test pilots.
Adam Fuhrmann, 35, is an Air Force major and was most recently serving as the director of operations for a flight test unit. The Leesburg, Virginia, native holds a master’s degree in flight test engineering from the Air Force’s Test Pilot School, among other engineering degrees. He’s logged more than 2,100 flight hours across 27 different aircraft, including the F-35 and the F-16, as well as more than 400 combat hours as part of Operations Freedom’s Sentinel and Resolute Support.
Rebecca Lawler, 38, is a former Navy lieutenant colonel who served as an experimental test pilot, logging more than 2,800 hours across more than 45 aircraft. She graduated from the National Test Pilot School and the Naval Test Pilot School, and flew as a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hurricane hunter, and during NASA’s Operation IceBridge, monitoring changes in polar ice. She was most recently a test pilot for United Airlines. The Little Elm, Texas, native also earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the Naval Academy and got her master’s from Johns Hopkins University.
Erin Overcash, 34, is a Navy lieutenant commander from Goshen, Kentucky. She is a graduate of the Naval Test Pilot School, with more than 1,300 flight hours logged across 20 aircraft. She’s been deployed multiple times, gaining most of her experience as an F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornet pilot and making 249 landings on aircraft carriers. She also has her bachelor’s in aerospace engineering and a master’s in bioastronautics from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and was also a part of the Navy’s World Class Athlete Program, training full-time with the USA Women’s National Rugby Team.
Ben Bailey, 38, is an Army chief warrant officer 3 and a graduate of the Naval Test Pilot School with more than 2,000 hours logged across more than 30 different fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. Most recently, he was responsible for developmental testing of new technologies onboard Army helicopters, especially the UH-60 Black Hawk and the CH-47F Chinook. Bailey also graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, and he is completing his master’s in systems engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
Cameron Jones, 35, is a U.S. Air Force Major and a graduate of both the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California and the Air Force Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. While most of his experience is in the F-22 Raptor, Jones logged more than 1,600 flight hours across more than 30 different aircraft. He also logged more than 150 combat hours. The Savanna, Illinois, native earned degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was last serving as an Air Force Academic Fellow at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Katherine Spies, 43, is a former Marine Corps AH-1 attack helicopter pilot and an experimental test pilot, graduating from the Naval Test Pilot School. She logged more than 2,000 hours across more than 30 different aircraft, and when she was selected to be an astronaut, she was serving as the director of flight test engineering at Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation. The San Diego native is also a graduate of the University of Southern California and earned a master’s in design engineering from Harvard University.
The Scientist, Engineer, and Doctor
The candidate class also includes a geologist, an electrical engineer, and an anesthesiologist.
Lauren Edgar, 40, is a geology expert, earning degrees from Dartmouth College and the California Institute of Technology, and most recently working with the U.S. Geological Survey. Previously, she was the deputy principal investigator for the geology team for Artemis III’s moon landing mission. She worked with NASA to define lunar science goals and determine the geological activities NASA’s astronauts would conduct, as well as the science operations for NASA’s return to the Moon. She also invested more than 17 years into supporting NASA’s Mars rovers.
Yuri Kubo, 40, began his experience with NASA as a co-op student in Houston, where he supported work on the Space Shuttle Program, the International Space Station (ISS), and the Orion spacecraft. The Columbus, Indiana, native holds degrees in electrical engineering and computer engineering from Purdue University. He spent 12 years at SpaceX, serving in several director roles, including launch director for Falcon 9 rocket launches. Most recently, he was senior vice president of engineering at Electric Hydrogen.
Imelda Muller, 34, comes to the astronaut corps with a behavioral neuroscience degree from Northeastern University and a medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine. A former Navy lieutenant from Copake Falls, New York, she trained at the Naval Undersea Medical Institute and served as an undersea medical officer. She’s already brought her talents to NASA, including providing medical support during Navy operational dive training at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. Upon selection, she was completing her residency in anesthesia at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
The Commercial Astronaut
Out of this class of 10 astronaut candidates, one has already earned her astronaut wings in the commercial sector.
Anna Menon, 39, served as a mission specialist and medical officer aboard SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission in 2024 with former nominee for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman. She was a senior engineer at SpaceX when she was selected, but the Houston native previously worked at NASA’s Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control Center, supporting the medical software and hardware aboard the ISS. She graduated from Texas Christian University with degrees in mathematics and Spanish, and earned a master’s in biomedical engineering from Duke University.
More Than Just Exploration
The astronaut candidates reported for duty at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in mid-September and began nearly two years of initial training.
Focused on operations for ISS missions, the Artemis missions to the Moon, and beyond, the training includes land and water survival, robotics, geology, space medicine and physiology, foreign language, spacewalk simulations, and flying high-performance jets.
Duffy and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have also made clear the realities of a second space race with communist China, and that the astronauts would have to keep national security in mind.
NASA has recruited 370 astronaut candidates since 1959.