NASA's selection for this year's astronaut candidate class is out and, for the first time in the agency's history, half of them are women.

"This year we have selected eight highly qualified individuals who have demonstrated impressive strengths academically, operationally and physically," Jane Kavandi, director of Flight Crew Operations at Johnson Space Center, said in a press release.

This includes Josh Cassada, 39, a Minnesota native and former naval aviator with an advanced degree in physics as well as U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School graduate Victor Glover, 37, of California, who currently serves as a Navy Legislative Fellow in the U.S. Congress and holds the title of an F/A-18 pilot.

Tyler Hague, 37, is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy from Kansas who studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and currently supports the Department of Defense as Deputy Chief of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization. A native of North Carolina, Christina Hammock, 34, holds degrees from North Carolina State University and currently works as NOAA Station Chief of American Samoa.

Meanwhile, Anne McClain, 34, is from Washington and a major in the U.S. Army, having graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and, more recently, from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. Jessica Meir, 35, is from Maine and a graduate from Brown University with an advanced degree from the International Space University as well as a doctorate from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Currently, Meir works as an assistant professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School.

Finally, Dr. Andrew Morgan, 37, is from Pennsylvania and a major in the U.S. Army as well as a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point with experience as an emergency physician and flight surgeon for the Army special operations community.

The group represents the top picks out of more than 6,000 applicants - the second largest NASA has ever received - and will begin training at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston in August.

"These new space explorers asked to join NASA because they know we're doing big, bold things here - developing missions to go farther into space than ever before," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said.

Bolden explained the group will help lead the first human mission to an asteroid and, eventually, Mars.

Ultimately, Kavandi sighted the new cast's diverse skill sets, expertise and experiences as evidence that this year's crew is set up to "achieve great things for NASA and this country in the pursuit of human exploration."

To learn more about the training necessary to become an astronaut, click here.