For the first time in 50 years, a NASA astronaut candidate has resigned

Enlarge / Robb Kulin, at Ellington Field. (credit: NASA)

A little more than a year ago, NASA introduced its newest class of 12 astronaut candidates. These talented men and women were chosen from a deep pool of 18,300 applicants, and after two years of training they were to join the space agency's corps for possible assignment on missions to the International Space Station, lunar orbit, or possibly the surface of the Moon.

However, one of those 12 astronauts, Robb Kulin, will not be among them. On Monday, NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean confirmed to Ars that Kulin had resigned his employment at NASA, effective August 31, "for personal reasons."

Sources described Kulin as a "family man," confident in his abilities. A native of Anchorage, Alaska, Kulin was a mechanical engineer who came to NASA from the rocket company SpaceX, where he had been a senior manager for flight reliability. "Hopefully, I will one day fly on a vehicle that has components that I got to design," Kulin said in June 2017, during a news conference announcing the new astronaut class.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments