A Colorado woman joined nine others in officially becoming a NASA astronaut this week. Nichole Ayers, who grew up in the Colorado Springs area and went to Woodland Park High School, graduated as part of the 10-person class on Tuesday.
Ayers is a 2011 graduate of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. She is “one of few” women to fly an F-22 Raptor, NASA says, and in 2019 led the first ever all-woman formation of the aircraft in combat.
"We are excited to have a new and diverse set of explorers ready to expand humanity’s reach,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a release posted to NASA's website. “Astronauts are pioneers who will help us embark on this new era of exploration, and we need more adventurers ready to join the ranks to explore the cosmos, including future missions to the Moon, on to Mars, and beyond.”
Denver7 spoke with Ayers when she was selected from a pool of over 12,000 applicants to be a part of the 2021 astronaut candidate class.
“As a young child, I always had an affinity for the sky and for space, and I'm the little kid that wanted to be an astronaut growing up,” she said at the time. “Living right there in the Springs area, we got to see the Thunderbirds fly over every year. “I knew as a serious little kid, I was going to go to the Air Force Academy and wanted to try to get into pilot training and take that path to being an astronaut.”
The astronauts in this year's class were selected in December of 2021 and enrolled in January of 2022. After two years of training, the are now eligible for flight assignments, according to NASA.
Ayers told us in 2021 that her dream was to become the first person on Mars.
“I think the near term [goal] is definitely trying to get to the moon and learning how to live long-term in space,” she said. “That way we can use those as stepping stones to getting to Mars.”
Her experience flying the F-22 Raptor is why her call sign in the Air Force is “Vapor.” On hot and humid days, the environmental control system on the fighter jet can produce steam, or vapor, she said – which can be mistaken for smoke. It was an important lesson she learned early in her time flying the jet.
“So I made a conservative choice and got out of the jet rather than taking that jet. It turned into a funny story,” she told Denver7.
