A nervous Jack Hathaway had one last obstacle to overcome before becoming a NASA astronaut candidate: finding the time to hear the news.Hathaway was awaiting a call in 2021 from NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, then chief of the astronaut office, to hear if he could also join the agency. But Hathaway was on the carrier ship USS Truman, far at sea and flying with Strike Fighter Squadron 81. So the U.S. Navy commander and pilot kept missing the crucial call, he told Space.com.”Finally, at the end of the afternoon, he sent me an email,” Hathaway said on March 5. Hathaway finished his daily piloting duties, read his emails and scurried to a ready room to use an open line, which is “you know, a group area.” Unluckily, the moment Wiseman told Hathaway the carrier pilot would need to start packing for NASA training, a group of officers walked by on patrol and saw an excited Hathaway silently putting his hands on his head.The officers knew Hathaway, who graduated from astronaut candidate training this month, all too well: they were “paddles,” the people responsible for grading every Navy aviator’s carrier landing. “They watched my reaction,” Hathaway recounted, “and they immediately walked down the length of the ship to talk to all the other ready rooms. They told everyone they saw. So I was not successful, keeping it a secret.”Related: NASA graduates new astronaut class as it begins recruiting for moreHathaway and 11 other astronaut candidates — 10 from NASA and two from the United Arab Emirates — finished 2.5 years of basic training this month and are eligible for future missions.They have a rich array of spaceflight possibilities to enjoy: possible moon or lunar space station flights for the Artemis program, months-long missions on the International Space Station (ISS) and missions to future commercial space stations that are in development.To be sure, the process will not be obstacle-free: the first two planned Artemis crewed missions were delayed in January due to technical gremlin …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnA nervous Jack Hathaway had one last obstacle to overcome before becoming a NASA astronaut candidate: finding the time to hear the news.Hathaway was awaiting a call in 2021 from NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, then chief of the astronaut office, to hear if he could also join the agency. But Hathaway was on the carrier ship USS Truman, far at sea and flying with Strike Fighter Squadron 81. So the U.S. Navy commander and pilot kept missing the crucial call, he told Space.com.”Finally, at the end of the afternoon, he sent me an email,” Hathaway said on March 5. Hathaway finished his daily piloting duties, read his emails and scurried to a ready room to use an open line, which is “you know, a group area.” Unluckily, the moment Wiseman told Hathaway the carrier pilot would need to start packing for NASA training, a group of officers walked by on patrol and saw an excited Hathaway silently putting his hands on his head.The officers knew Hathaway, who graduated from astronaut candidate training this month, all too well: they were “paddles,” the people responsible for grading every Navy aviator’s carrier landing. “They watched my reaction,” Hathaway recounted, “and they immediately walked down the length of the ship to talk to all the other ready rooms. They told everyone they saw. So I was not successful, keeping it a secret.”Related: NASA graduates new astronaut class as it begins recruiting for moreHathaway and 11 other astronaut candidates — 10 from NASA and two from the United Arab Emirates — finished 2.5 years of basic training this month and are eligible for future missions.They have a rich array of spaceflight possibilities to enjoy: possible moon or lunar space station flights for the Artemis program, months-long missions on the International Space Station (ISS) and missions to future commercial space stations that are in development.To be sure, the process will not be obstacle-free: the first two planned Artemis crewed missions were delayed in January due to technical gremlin …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
