Nasa announces 10 new astronaut recruits

Image source, NASA

Image caption, These 10 people could be Nasa's future astronauts

Nasa has announced 10 new astronaut recruits, who could fly to the International Space Station (ISS) and on future missions to the Moon.

The six men and four women were selected from more than 12,000 applications and went through a tough interview process to get a spot.

One of the chosen recruits, Christina Birch gave her advice for other people wanting to be future astronauts: "If you do the little things well, they add up to something big."

The candidates will now take part in two years of training.

Video caption, WATCH: Nasa's Steve Smith on what's it like to be an astronaut

The group will take part in the basic Astronaut Candidate training programme, which is designed to help recruits get the skills they will need if they are selected for a space flight.

It includes completing military water survival exercises, flying Nasa's T-38 training jets, and becoming scuba-qualified to prepare them for the spacewalk training.

All recruits must complete the training to a good level if they want to be selected as fully-fledged astronauts.

Those who do pass become available for flights to the ISS and to the Moon in the future.