NASA has 10 new astronauts, and they could not have joined at a better time

Enlarge / Meet the new astronaut-candidates: US Air Force Maj. Nichole Ayers, Christopher Williams, US Marine Corps Maj. (retired) Luke Delaney, US Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jessica Wittner, US Air Force Lt. Col. Anil Menon, US Air Force Maj. Marcos Berrios, US Navy Cmdr. Jack Hathaway, Christina Birch, US Navy Lt. Deniz Burnham, and Andre Douglas. (credit: NASA)

This week, NASA announced its first class of new astronauts since 2017, hiring 10 candidates to train at Johnson Space Center in Houston for the next two years.

There is no guarantee that each of these six men and four women, ages 32 to 45 and all with extremely impressive resumes, will complete the training and become full-fledged astronauts. But one thing is clear: They're arriving at NASA at an auspicious time.

"This is the golden age of human spaceflight," said Reid Wiseman on Monday during a ceremony at an airfield near Johnson Space Center welcoming the new astronaut candidates.

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