AstronautNicole Aunapu Mann, whose grandfather was Estonian, is due to take her first space flight onboard the Boeing Starliner in 2019.
NASA, the United StatesNational Aeronautics and Space Administration, introduced on 4 August the first US astronauts who will fly on an American-made, commercial spacecraft to and from theInternational Space Station. The endeavour will return astronaut launches to US soil for the first time since the country retired its aging space shuttles in 2011.
The space agency assigned nine astronauts to crew the first test flight and the mission of bothBoeing’s CST-100 StarlinerandSpaceX’s Crew Dragon. Among the three astronauts selected for Boeing’s Starliner test flight is Nicole AunapuMann – a California native whose grandfather, Helmuth Aunapu, emigrated to the US from Estonia just before the Second World War. This will be her first trip to space.
A possible mission to Mars