Marine Corps Cobra Pilot selected as NASA Astronaut

Marine Corps Major Jasmin Moghbeli, a combat experienced Cobra helicopter pilot was chosen last month as a NASA astronaut candidate.

Maj. Jasmin “Jaws” Moghbeli, who spoke to USNI News on June 15, said she’s thrilled about her selection and that, wherever her NASA career takes her, “going to space at all still sounds incredible to me.”

“In sixth grade we had to do a book report, and I chose to do mine on Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, cosmonaut. So that got me interested in space,” she said.

“And we dressed up as the person we did the book report on, so my mom helped me make this space suit and everything. So that kind of got me interested and I was like, yeah, I want to be an astronaut. As a kid I think it was just the excitement of exploring space and it just sounded cool.

As I got older, junior high, early high school, I started looking into, how would I become an astronaut, and that kind of got me looking into military aviation.” – USNI News