Posts: 1505
From: Bluffton IN USA
Registered: Oct 2007

posted 05-02-2012 08:28 AM               

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Does the European Space Agency (ESA) plan on continuing having a presence in the NASA Astronaut Office?

By my count there are only three ESA astronauts currently assigned there (Nespoli, Schlegel, Vittori), and none of the 2009 selectees went through ASCAN training nor are assigned to JSC.

Being that for now NASA doesn't provide any opportunity to launch ESA astronauts, I was just curious.

Posts: 1505
From: Bluffton IN USA
Registered: Oct 2007

Posts: 358
From: Studio City CA USA
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 05-03-2012 06:23 PM               

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No, and no. ESA doesn't need to send its astronauts to JSC for years, since they are no longer training for shuttle flights. (They do, of course, come to JSC to train on the US elements of the station.)

And since none of the ISS IPs (other than Russia) is conducting a new selection, there won't be any international astronaut candidates joining the 2013s.