NASA names San Diego’s Katherine Spies to new astronaut class, possible Mars trip

San Diego native Katherine Spies was introduced Monday as one of NASA’s newest astronauts, joining nine other scientists, engineers and test pilots heading to the moon and possibly Mars.

More than 8,000 people applied. The six women and four men will undergo two years of training before becoming eligible for spaceflight.

Spies (pronounced SPEES) — who took the stage 10:17 into the video above — is an AH-1 attack helicopter pilot and Marine Corps test pilot with more than 2,000 flight hours in more than 30 different aircraft — including 300 hours in combat.

“In the next two years of astronaut candidate training, the thing that I’m super pumped about is learning the language of human space flight,” Spies, 43, said at the class reveal at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA Acting Admini