Victor Glover circled the Moon in April as pilot of Artemis II, the first Black astronaut to travel into deep space. The 12 men who have actually walked on the Moon, all of them in the Apollo years, were white. NASA is now taking applications for the class that could change that.
The agency opened applications Nov. 7 and will take them until midnight Eastern on Dec. 3. Administrator Jared Isaacman said the people selected “could walk on the moon, live and work at the moon base, and help pioneer the systems and operations that will ultimately carry crews to Mars.” The salary is $164,395 a year. The class is expected to be named in late 2027, with training starting in 2028 at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The requirements are specific. Applicants must be US citizens with a master’s degree in engineering, biological or physical science, computer science or math, plus three years of related professional experience (certain medical degrees and test-pilot training also qualify). They must pass NASA’s long-duration astronaut physical and a swimming test, and be willing to deploy to space for a year or more.
That is a short path on paper and a narrow door in practice. NASA’s last class had 10 people in it, and the agency has about 32 active astronauts. Each seat matters, and so does who knows to reach for one.
Glover was the proof of concept. He joined NASA in 2013, flew a 168-day mission to the International Space Station, then went around the Moon on a 10-day flight of roughly 700,000 miles with Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen. Before launch he told NASA’s “Curious Universe” podcast: “We are going for our families.”
Black engineers, scientists, pilots and physicians are already qualified for this job. What they have lacked for more than 50 years is a seat at the top of the ladder. The first Black person to leave a footprint on another world has not yet been chosen, and the pool is open for the next three weeks.
The deadline is Dec. 3.
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