SUMMARY: NASA named its latest batch of astronauts; the 11 candidates include three teachers, who were selected from over 1,000 candidates. The introduction of the new astronauts comes at a time when the space shuttle fleet is still grounded because of the Columbia disaster - they probably won't fly until 2009. The candidates are Joseph Acaba, Thomas Marshburn, Christopher Cassidy, R. Shane Kimbrough, Jose Hernandez, Robert Satcher, Shannon Walker, James Dutton, and Randolph Bresnik.

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I know it's too bad about the astronauts that died, but if you worry too much about every tragedy that happens in American Life, and all those that gave their Life so our own life would be easier, we would get nowhere! Such a long time to wait for our astronaunts to get into space is a shame. I don't see ourself as the Leaders in space with that type of thinking?

About 150 Americans die every day in auto "accidents" and no government agency suggests closing down the highways and grounding the auto fleet.

That's the equivalent of 1 Shuttle crew dying every ˜67 minutes, 21 shuttle crews, all day long...every day...every year.

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Pre-Quote: 'To survive one has to experiment. When the environment changes, the traditional way of doing things doesn't work.'

Quote:
"It's the outriders, the organisms that seem to be maladjusted before the change, which are the only ones that survive these changes...in that way a species continues."

Carl Sagan