NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced on July 9 the first astronauts that would fly to space on commercial crew capsules built by private companies, Boeing and SpaceX.
The four American astronauts selected were Robert Behnken, Eric Boe, Douglas Hurley and Sunita Williams. Each member of the crew has incredible credentials as is clearly displayed on each biographical data linked by Bolden on his blog.
"All part of our ambitious plan to return space launches to U.S. soil, create good-paying American jobs and advance our goal of sending humans farther into the solar system than ever before," said Bolden as part of his statement.
Bolden continued that, "We are on a Journey to Mars, and in order to meet our goals for sending American astronauts to the Red Planet in the 2030s we need to be able to focus both on deep space and the groundbreaking work being done on the International Space Station (ISS)."
NASA is working with the American companies to develop game-changing technologies that are geared toward getting astronauts to deep space. The four have been astronauts for at least fifteen years and have a combined total of more than 400 days in space, according to NASA. Williams actually holds the record for most spacewalking time by a woman.
The test flights which SpaceX and Boeing are aiming for will be the first launch of astronauts into the international space station from Cape Canaveral, Florida, since the shutting down of the space shuttle in 2011.
John Elbon, the vice president and general manager of Boeing's Space Exploration, congratulated and welcomed the four astronauts. "We look forward to working with such a highly-skilled and experienced group of Nasa astronauts as we carve a path forward to launch in 2017."
"Human spaceflight is why SpaceX was founded, and we look forward to supporting our nation's exploration efforts by launching astronauts from America again" added President and COO of SpaceX, Gwyne Shotwell.
