New NASA astronauts celebrate moon missions, private space stations as they get ready for liftoff (exclusive)

A bunch of astronauts in flight suits standing in front of a huge rocket and pointing at the sky.

A nervous Jack Hathaway had one last obstacle to overcome before becoming a NASA astronaut candidate: finding the time to hear the news.

Hathaway was awaiting a call in 2021 from NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, then chief of the astronaut office, to hear if he could also join the agency. But Hathaway was on the carrier ship USS Truman, far at sea and flying with Strike Fighter Squadron 81. So the U.S. Navy commander and pilot kept missing the crucial call, he told Space.com.