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Nasa published a report expressing concern regarding the low number of astronauts available to carry out scheduled space missions for the next few years.
In the text, presented by the Office of the Inspector General of NASA, point out that currently the astronaut corps is made up of only 12 people who have the necessary training to carry out the missions.
The figure represents less than a third of the number of astronauts who were in service at the beginning of the 1200 when the record of 150 specialists.
They emphasize that if the projections planned for this year materialize, the number of astronauts will hardly allow meeting the requirements to complete the missions already scheduled.
“As a consequence of this, NASA may not have a sufficient number of additional astronauts available to solve unforeseen events such as crew reassignments or roles on the ground”, the document refers.
The Space Agency considers that this situation should lead to rethink the way in which work is being carried out in order to comply with the standards already established and to be able to increase the number of qualified personnel.
They indicated that at the moment the number of astronauts is determined by the number of missions carried out on the International Space Station . However, if the possible missions to the Moon and Mars are taken into account, these could become unfeasible.
“In view of the increase in With anticipated expanding spaceflight possibilities due to Artemis missions, the astronaut corps could incur mission delays. )This means that the Artemis missions, whose goal is to put man back on the Moon, could be delayed beyond the year 2020, date on which they are expected to take place.
One piece of news that could be encouraging in the current circumstances is that there is still interest in the public about the astronaut career. The best example of this is that according to the latest figures reported by Nasa there are more than 12,000 requests from people who want to receive training to become astronauts.
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