First Iranian-US astronaut reaches for stars!

HOUSTON: Jasmin ‘Jaws’ Moghbeli earned her fierce nickname during her time as a decorated helicopter gunship pilot who flew more than 150 missions in Afghanistan.

The Marine Corps major, MIT graduate and college basketball player can now add another accomplishment to her burgeoning resume: the first Iranian-American astronaut. Speaking to AFP after graduating in Nasa’s latest cohort, the 36-year-old immigrant said she hoped her example might help inspire others from similar backgrounds.

“I would love for everyone to be able to be inspired by everyone, but it is a little easier to be inspired by someone who looks like you or has something in common with you, so I do hope there is that influence,” she said.

She and her brother were born in Germany to Iranian parents, architecture students who had fled their native country after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But Moghbeli grew up in Baldwin, New York, which she considers her hometown – and her story after that reads like an immigrant’s fairy tale.