The latest batch of astronaut candidates introduced by NASA include some North Texas flare.
For the first time ever, there were more women than men in the incoming astronaut class, which include engineer and pilot Rebecca “Becky” Lawler, of Little Elm, and TCU graduate Anna Menon, originally from Houston.
Per NBC DFW, Lawler earned her bachelor's in mechanical engineering at the U.S. Naval Academy and is a U.S. Naval Test Pilot School graduate. She's got master's degrees in space systems engineering and flight test engineering and flew with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as a hurricane hunter and flew a P-3 Orion during NASA's Operation IceBridge.
Menon earned her bachelor’s degree from TCU with a double major in mathematics and Spanish and also holds a master’s in biomedical engineering from Duke University. She previously worked in the Mission Control Center at NASA Johnson, and in 2024 flew to space as a mission specialist and medical officer aboard SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn. At the time of her selection, Menon was a senior engineer at SpaceX.
The six women and four men in the candidate class will undergo two years of training before becoming eligible for spaceflight.
Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said one of them could become one of the first to step on Mars.
“You are America's best and brightest, and we're going to need America's best and brightest because we have a bold exploration plan for the future," he said at Monday's ceremony at Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Some are challenging our leadership in space, say like the Chinese … We are going to win."
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