Indian-American Raja Chari among 18 selected for NASA’s manned Moon mission

NASA has selected 18 people for its mission to the moon and beyond and an Indian-American is a part of the mission. Raja Chari, who is 43-year-old and a graduate from the US Air Force Academy, MIT, is the only Indian-American in the list. Also, half of the people who have been selected are women. 

Mission to moon

As per the reports by PTI, speaking about the same, Vice President Mike Pence said, “My fellow Americans, I give you the heroes of the future who will carry us back to the Moon and beyond: the Artemis Generation”. He added, “It really is amazing to think that the next man and the first woman on the Moon are among the names that we just read...We started today reflecting on a great hero of the past. The Artemis Generation are the heroes of American space exploration in the future”.

Raja was selected by NASA to join the 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class. Now that he has completed the initial astronaut candidate training, he is eligible for a mission assignment. 

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Under the Artemis program, NASA astronauts will stay on the moon for up to 6 and a half days and the crew for the Artemis 3 mission will be selected in 2022 or 2023, the space agency informed in a press briefing. Human astronauts can perform complicated tasks on the moon easily such as drilling cores and digging trenches, compared to robots, Sarah Noble, lunar program scientist in NASA's science mission directorate reportedly said. The humans achieving the scientific goals will be an advancement of their capabilities compared with robot artificial intelligence and artificial imaging. NASA plans to impart geology expeditions and training similar to that given to Apollo astronauts in the 1970s. 

 NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said, “We are incredibly grateful for the president and vice president’s support of the Artemis program, as well as the bipartisan support for all of NASA’s science, aeronautics research, technology development, and human exploration goals”. The astronauts for the team come from diverse backgrounds. The oldest astronaut in the team is 55 and the youngest is 32.

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Speaking about the mission, Chief Astronaut Pat Forrester said, “There is so much exciting work ahead of us as we return to the moon, and it will take the entire astronaut corps to make that happen”. He added, “Walking on the lunar surface would be a dream come true for any one of us, and any part we can play in making that happen is an honour”. Few other members on the list are: Christina Koch and Jessica Meir. Both of them performed the world’s first all-female spacewalk last year.

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(Image Credits: Twitter/@Astro_Raja)