The four astronauts comprising the Artemis 3 crew announced this week are all male, but NASA officials emphasized they were selected based on qualifications and not to exclude any genders. The selectees, announced yesterday (June 9), were NASA's Randy Bresnik (commander), the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Luca Parmitano (pilot), and NASA mission specialists Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio. NASA's Bob Hines, a past SpaceX pilot and ISS astronaut, is backup.
All-male crews are a rarity these days. Out of the 37 active NASA astronauts, 15 are women, or around 40%. With the exception of the SpaceX Crew-6 mission in 2023 and the half-empty Crew-9 'rescue mission' in 2024, there has always been at least one woman on NASA missions to the International Space Station (ISS) since SpaceX began flying NASA crews to the ISS in 2021. 11 of the 15 active NASA female astronauts have flown to space in the past five years, according to a Space.com analysis.
