Q&A STEVEN SWANSON

The three-time NASA astronaut tells us about life in space and the significance of Artemis

During his career at NASA, Swanson logged over 195 days in space, undertaking five spacewalks. His three missions to the ISS include two Space Shuttle flights (STS-117 and STS-119) and one Soyuz flight (TMA-12M). How does NASA select astronauts? Nobody knows for sure. Really it’s up to the chief of the astronaut office to make that selection, and sometimes others depending on how high profile the mission is. But it’s partly just where you are in the queue, because we come in as a group together. The people who came in the group before will fly before you do. I didn’t think about an astronaut career until I was about 25. It took 12 years from that point to become one, and I ended up working 11 of those years…

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All About Space Annual (Digital) - 1 Issue, All About Space Annual (2024)

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