On Wednesday, November 23, the European Space Agency (ESA) released the list of astronauts, five of whom will begin their annual basic training in April 2023.

This is reported by Politico.

The main criterion was "to make sure they're pushing the right buttons and not the wrong ones," joked Josef Aschbacher, ESA's director general, who conducted the latest interview.

Along with the five main astronauts, a reserve list of 11 people was drawn up, which included Briton John McFall, who lost his leg after a motorcycle accident at the age of 19.

It will help ESA explore the possibility of sending a para-astronaut into space. 

The final candidates were selected after six rounds from 22,253 applicants.

There is a chance that one of the newcomers will become the first European to land on the moon if ESA can strike a deal with NASA and get a place on one of the Artemis missions planned for the early 2030s.

The main team includes the Frenchwoman Sophie Adenot, the Spanish Pablo Alvarez Fernandez, the British Rosemary Coogan, the Belgian Raphael Ligeois and the Swiss Marco Sieber.

We will remind, previously the tallest woman in the world, Rumeysa Gelgi, used air transport for the first time in her life, making a 13-hour flight from Istanbul to San Francisco.

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