NASA’s Astronaut Numbers Are Dwindling: Missions at Risk

US space agency NASA is experiencing one of the biggest astronaut crises in its history. According to the latest news, the space agency is suffering from a shortage of astronauts, despite the long list of tasks ahead. This is thought to pose many challenges in NASA’s path.

Compared to previous years, the number of astronauts NASA has decreased considerably. We briefly talked about the reasons for the decrease in the number of astronauts and what this might lead to. Let’s see what the situation is.

NASA’s only 44 astronauts left

In a statement made by NASA’s Office of the Inspector General, it was announced that it has the lowest number of astronauts since the 1970s. NASA currently has only 44 astronauts, up from 150 in 2000. In the shared report, it is said that the number of astronauts may decrease further in the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years.

The reason why astronauts in NASA has decreased so much is that most people did not want to be astronauts in the recent past and current astronauts retired. According to the report, only 10 new astronauts were recruited to NASA between 2004 and 2012.

As a result, NASA may not have crews for future space missions and enough additional astronauts for ground roles such as program development. This can lead to crew shortages and therefore mission delays for space flights such as NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions to the Moon.

Fortunately, at the same time, the news is that NASA is preparing to add new astronauts to its body with an astronaut program that it started last month. However, of course, considering the training programs and long preparation processes, it is not known whether any program will be adversely affected by the situation.