NASA Selects Latino Among Its New Astronauts

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

Among the twelve new astronauts selected by NASA this year and announced yesterday, there is a Latino. This is Francisco Frank Rubio, a doctor and decorated Blackhawk UH-60 helicopter pilot, who flew more than 1,100 hours during the deployments to Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq, at which time he was awarded the Bronze Star, the Medal of Meritorious Service, the Army Praise Medal and the Army Achievement Medal.

According to El Nuevo Herald, Rubio is a doctor with Salvadoran roots, 41, who was born in the city of Los Angeles, California, and lived his teenage years in South Florida.

Explaining how it feels to be chosen from the 18,300 who applied between December 2015 and February 2016 to be part of the select group of NASA cosmonauts, he commented: "It is an incredible achievement … I hope to represent Miami well."

His intense two-year training program will begin in August this year at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where he must learn to fly jets, walk in space, and even speak fluent Russian.

After this, he (the only Latino astronaut in the group) and his eleven companions will wait until they are assigned to one of four space programs: the International Space Station, the Orion spacecraft, or one of the developing commercial ships, the Boeing CST. -100 Starliner or the SpaceX Crew Dragon.

For now, Rubio continues working to conquer his dream not only of going to space, but, who knows, maybe even stepping on Mars? While this achievement may seem an impossible dream to some for now, he has already shown that he is an expert in conquering the unattainable.