{"id":9537,"date":"2026-06-10T18:04:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T10:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-chief-defends-selection-of-all-male-artemis-3-crew\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T18:04:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T10:04:49","slug":"nasa-chief-defends-selection-of-all-male-artemis-3-crew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-chief-defends-selection-of-all-male-artemis-3-crew\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA chief defends selection of all-male Artemis 3 crew"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Artemis 3 crew members NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, commander; ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, pilot; and NASA astronauts Frank Rubio, mission specialist, and Andre Douglas, mission specialist, are seen during the Artemis 3 crew announcement event, Tuesday, June 9, 2026, at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Image: NASA\/John Kraus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, responding to questions about the agency\u2019s selection of an all-male crew for the Artemis 3 mission, said the astronauts were chosen based solely on their experience, skill sets and availability.<\/p>\n

Isaacman wrote on the social media platform X that \u201cI have seen reactions ranging from disappointment to outrage.\u201d One such response on Reddit called the crew announcement \u201cmassively upsetting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen represent 50 percent of the population,\u201d the post read. \u201cThey deserve at least one seat on every mission from a government run agency.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Isaacman strongly defended the crew selection, saying he had \u201cpersonally been to space twice with 50 percent female crews. My closest advisors and some of the smartest engineers I know are women. In our latest NASA leadership organization, nearly 50 percent of the center directors and mission directorate leadership are women.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last astronaut candidate class selected under this administration was majority female [six women and four men] because they were the best of the best, including one astronaut [Anna Menon] I previously went to space with.\u201d<\/p>\n

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NASA announced its 2025 Astronaut Candidate Class on Sept. 22, 2025. The 10 candidates, pictured here at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston are: U.S. Army CW3 Ben Bailey, Anna Menon, Rebecca Lawler, Katherine Spies, U.S. Air Force Maj. Cameron Jones, Dr. Lauren Edgar, U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Erin Overcash, Yuri Kubo, Dr. Imelda Muller, and U.S. Air Force Maj. Adam Fuhrmann. Image: NASA\/Josh Valcarcel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During an event Tuesday at the Johnson Space Center, NASA revealed the astronauts who had been selected for next year\u2019s Artemis 3 mission, a flight to test rendezvous and docking procedures in low-Earth orbit with moon landers being built by SpaceX and Blue Origin.<\/p>\n

The mission will be commanded by Randy Bresnik, 58, veteran of 149 days in space during a shuttle flight and a space station stay. European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, 49, a veteran of two long-duration ISS stays, will serve as pilot.<\/p>\n

Also on board: Andre Douglas, 40, a space rookie with broad engineering experience, and Frank Rubio, 49, who logged a U.S.-record 371 days in space aboard the ISS in 2022-23.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The four members of NASA\u2019s SpaceX Crew-12 mission emerge from the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkouts building to greet friends and family before heading out to Space Launch Complex 40 for their flight. Left to right: Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot. Image: Michael Cain\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In an interview that aired on CNN Wednesday, Bresnik said the selection of an all-male crew for Artemis 3 was \u201ccertainly not intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can look at our astronaut office and see the wide diversity within the office, whether that\u2019s gender or background or nationality or heritage,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd certainly, the boss had to pick the crew for this flight that he had available that had the skill sets that he needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA currently has about 35 active-duty astronauts. The list includes 15 women but does not yet include the six currently in training to join the astronaut corps.<\/p>\n

The Artemis 2 crew, the program\u2019s first to carry astronauts, included Christina Koch, who became the first female to fly around the moon. NASA\u2019s Jessica Meir and ESA\u2019s Sophie Adenot are currently in orbit aboard the International Space Station and Jasmin Moghbeli is in training to command an upcoming Crew Dragon flight to the lab complex. Bresnik said two more yet-to-be-announced women are in training for a downstream flight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe office gets what it needs when it needs it, and we\u2019ll certainly have all these other people that you mentioned, you know, female military test pilots or just other female astronauts, that\u2019ll be picking up on the follow-on Artemis missions,\u201d Bresnik said.<\/p>\n

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NASA astronaut and SpaceX Crew-13 Commander Jessica Watkins is pictured in her pressure suit during a training session at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. Image: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In any case, the Artemis 3 crew brings a wide variety of skills to what is essentially a flight test in low-Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

Bresnik is a former \u201cTOPGUN\u201d graduate and military test pilot while Parmitano flew high-performance jets for the Italian air force. Rubio holds a doctorate in medicine and is a former UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter pilot. Douglas holds three master\u2019s degrees and a Ph.D. in engineering.<\/p>\n

Isaacman said the astronaut office \u201cassigns the crew that gives the mission the best chance of meeting its objectives, taking into account many factors, including the background and expertise of the astronauts, such as test pilot experience, development work on specific programs, and availability.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that critics of the Artemis III crew selection \u201cmay not be aware of the pipeline of crews already preparing to launch to the space station, or those who have been undergoing lunar-specific training that would be a better fit for a future surface mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaacman concluded by saying Bresnik and his crewmates were \u201cexperienced, qualified and deserve to be celebrated for the mission they have been assigned, just as the crews that follow will be celebrated when their time comes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artemis 3 crew members NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, commander; ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, pilot; and NASA astronauts Frank Rubio, mission specialist, and Andre Douglas, mission specialist, are seen during the Artemis 3 crew announcement event, Tuesday, June 9, 2026, at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Image: NASA\/John Kraus NASA Administrator […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[707,708,709,710,190,711],"class_list":["post-9537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-andre-douglas","tag-artemis-3","tag-frank-rubio","tag-luca-parmitano","tag-nasa","tag-randy-bresnik"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}