Houston (United States) (AFP)

After two and a half years of training at NASA, eleven Americans and two Canadians joined the corps of qualified astronauts on Friday to fly to the International Space Station and possibly one day the Moon or Mars.

"These astronauts could someday walk on the Moon as part of the Artemis program, and perhaps one of them will be among the first to walk on Mars," said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine. , at a ceremony at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

"They're the best of the best," said Jim Bridenstine.

18,000 people had applied, among which NASA had selected 12 people in 2017 (one resigned in the middle of the training). They have since trained themselves from Houston to go out into space, to manipulate the robotic tools of the International Space Station (ISS), and they have learned Russian - an essential language for cooperating with the cosmonauts who co-manage the station .

The two Canadians, Jennifer Sidey-Gibbons and Joshua Kutryk, formed with the Americans, a partnership dating back to 1983.

The new promotion called "Turtles" has a total of six women and seven men with exemplary CVs, exceptional military officers, many of whom have fought in Afghanistan or Iraq, over-qualified scientists, engineers and doctors. . The group is of an unprecedented diversity, with names of Indian, Iranian, Asian, Hispanic ...

Before joining NASA, Jasmin Moghbeli, a graduate of MIT, of Iranian origin, piloted helicopters. His comrade Jonny Kim is a former decorated Navy SEAL commando, who has become an emergency doctor at one of the largest hospitals in the country, in Boston. Jessica Watkins has a PhD in geology and worked in the Mars Curiosity rover team. Frank Rubio was an army doctor and pilot of Black Hawk helicopters ...

"They are highly qualified, and of a great diversity, they represent the whole of America," insisted the boss of the space agency.

During the ceremony, in a carefully prepared section, everyone praised the qualities of a comrade, consistent with the image of Epinal of the heroic astronaut: self-denial, courage, self-control, solidarity, and the belief that everyone in America can overcome obstacles to achieve their dreams.

"I would give her my life on the most daring spaceflight," said Jessica Watkins Matthew Dominick, Navy test pilot.

- The ISS then the Moon -

What a long way for NASA, a long male stronghold.

The first astronauts in the late 1950s were all men, military test pilots. It was not until 1983, with Sally Ride, that an American flew into space, twenty years after the Russian Valentina Terechkova.

But the space agency has caught up. The previous promotion, recruited in 2013, was already half female. Two American women are currently on board the ISS, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir.

Russia is lagging behind, with a latest 100% male cosmonaut promotion. As for Europe, his last promotion recruited in 2009 had only one woman, the Italian Samantha Cristoforetti.

Despite immense financial and technological challenges, the dynamic boss of NASA touts the agency's "comeback" after years of depression, symbolized according to him by the new faces of what he calls "the Artemis generation" - that he wants as glorious as the "Apollo generation".

Artémis is the return to the moon program from 2024, an ambitious and uncertain calendar imposed by the White House. Artemis, in Greek mythology, is the twin sister of Apollo (Apollo, in English), goddess of wilderness, hunting and ... of the Moon.

On the 2020 agenda is the return of manned flights to the ISS from the United States, nine years after the last landing of a space shuttle, but the two capsules, Crew Dragon (SpaceX) and Starliner (Boeing), are still not certified.

The 13 new astronauts will be assigned to a first mission in a few years, probably first to the ISS, where at least three Americans live permanently. The first trip to the Moon will not be for them: this mission, Artémis 3, will be reserved for the previous generation.

© 2020 AFP