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NASA Introduces New Class of 11 Astronauts

Posted on: Thursday, 6 May 2004, 06:00 CDT

CHANTILLY, Va. - NASA introduced a new class of 11 astronauts Thursday, a group that includes three teachers who are giving up the classroom for the chance to fly into space.

The teachers were selected from a field of more than 1,000 applicants and will live, work and train with a corps of more than 100 astronauts at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. If all goes according to plan, the teachers and the others in the astronaut Class of 2004 may be scheduled for a space flight by 2009.

No teacher has flown into space 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 space flight in 2006.

The introduction of the 11 new astronauts comes as the space program is in flux, with Shuttle missions grounded until at least 2005 in the wake of last year's Columbia explosion and plans to ground the shuttles in 2010 to redirect efforts for a return to the moon by 2020.

Last year, when the astronaut corps swelled to 144, the agency's inspector general warned that 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.

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

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

While there may a current dearth of flights, if things go well and astronauts indeed return to the moon by 2020, the astronauts in the current class could at that time be some of the most senior members of the astronaut corps, NASA spokeswoman Melissa Mathews said.

When Columbia exploded last year, Berlin was in the process of submitting his application, which he knew would be one among many hundreds, so the possibility of truly being an astronaut seemed remote at the time. Still, he 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 the 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 said she has enjoyed her job teaching science at Hudson's Bay High School, she is "looking forward to teaching in a different way" through the educator-astronaut program.

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, which has dropped significantly in size in the last year through retirements and attrition.

Mathews said the new astronaut 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; Robert Satcher, 38, of Oak Park, Ill.; 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.

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On the Net:

www.nasa.gov

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