Fact Check: Posts Claim a 19-Year-Old Woman Mastered 'All of NASA's Rigorous Tests' Required for Flight to Mars. Here Are the Facts

Claim:

Alyssa Carson, age 19, “made history by mastering all of NASA's rigorous tests.”

Rating:

What's True:

Alyssa Carson is a real person and 23 years old at the time of this writing. She was training to become an astronaut and hopes to participate in a mission on Mars. At the time of this publication, she was working towards her Ph.D. in Space and Planetary Sciences at the University of Arkansas, with an expected completion date of May 2028.

What's False:

As of May 2024, Alyssa had not passed “all of NASA’s rigorous tests,” nor was she officially part of NASA’s Astronaut Candidate Selection Program.

Many social media posts tout Alyssa Carson's accomplishments as a young woman: "An impressive 19-year-old astronaut who has made history by mastering all of NASA's rigorous tests, aiming to pioneer human travel to Mars." 

One such post, shared to Facebook on April 27, 2024, compared a black-and-white image of American fashion model Kendall Jenner (left) with one of Carson (right), with a caption that read, in part, "Let's encourage our daughters to admire qualities like resilience, determination, and intellect. Beauty now encompasses a multitude of dimensions." As of this publication, the post below received more than 2,700 interactions. 

The above post is an example of copypasta, a term that Snopes has previously characterized as one of the most persistent forms of misinformation on the internet. As we previously reported, "copypasta" is a "portmanteau of 'copy' and 'paste' (and a wink)" that, as its name suggests, refers to copied-and-pasted text shared online. Variations of the above post have been shared on other social media platforms, including X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn and Instagram.

Some iterations of the claim said she "can't get married [and] can't have kids," because "She is preparing to become the first human on Mars and She will never return to Earth." But as Reuters and USA Today reported in 2021, such claims are misleading and exaggerate her readiness to serve as a NASA astronaut. 

Snopes fact-checked a similar rumor about Carson in 2018, when she was 17 years old. She was 23 years old at the time of this writing (May 2024). While it's true she has undergone some training to become an astronaut and hopes to participate in a mission on Mars, she has not passed "all of NASA's rigorous tests" required to do so. She was working toward her Ph.D. in Space and Planetary Sciences at the University of Arkansas, with an expected completion date of May 2028. 

For these reasons, we have rated this claim as "Mixture." 

Snopes contacted Carson directly through her Instagram and Facebook accounts to clarify the many points in the claim above. She referred our newsroom to her father, Bert Carson, who said there were several factual inaccuracies. 

For one, the post above is outdated, he said. The Facebook post above states that she is 19 years old. As of this publication, she was 23. 

Furthermore, as of May 2024, she was not officially part of NASA's Astronaut Candidate Selection Program, which the space agency defines as "individuals who have been selected by NASA as candidates for the NASA astronaut corps and are currently undergoing a candidacy training program at the Johnson Space Center." As for those "aerial tests"? He father said he didn't know what the post was referring to. 

According to him, as of May 2024, she has done astronaut training with NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency facilities with a private citizens' research group. 

He referred us to her LinkedIn page, which lists her current profession as an Astronautical Science Researcher and Astronaut Candidate at the International Institute of Astronautical Sciences (IIAS) in Florida. She is an astrobiologist working towards her Ph.D. in Space and Planetary Sciences at the University of Arkansas, with an expected completion date of May 2028. 

According to the father, she was first "introduced to the world" by BBC in 2014, when she was 12 years old and sitting on a NASA panel discussing future missions to Mars planned to occur in the 2030s. 

"Today, you will see she has accomplished a lot building her resume to be one of the ones chosen to go to Mars," he told Snopes. "Between training and research most of her life, she is getting herself in a position of being a valuable scientist going to Mars." 

In the first half of 2024 alone, according to NASA, more than 8,000 people applied to be astronauts. Of that pool, between eight and 12 people will go on to become astronaut candidates, which requires two years of training before a candidate is eligible for a space flight. As of this writing, the space agency had selected 360 astronaut candidates since the program began in 1959 to fly on missions exploring space. 

Sources:

"Alyssa Carson, 20, Has Not Been Selected for a Mars Mission." Reuters, 8 June 2021. www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL2N2NP20P/.

Astronaut Selection Program - NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/astronauts/astronaut-selection-program/. Accessed 24 May 2024.

Candidate Astronauts - NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/astronauts/astronaut-candidates/. Accessed 24 May 2024.

Emery, Bond Huberman, David. "Snopestionary: What Is Copypasta?" Snopes, 19 Sept. 2021, https://www.snopes.com//articles/369246/what-is-copypasta/.

Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/selfmadebabes/posts/pfbid02AnoYkfctEkdGTEqCZZEMUGYznY745Hgj92ARJV39n2tkxMRJ9w1iik855tEpxx5yl. Accessed 24 May 2024.

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"Mars Girl Answers Audience Questions." BBC News. www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-29827873. Accessed 24 May 2024.

Sadeghi, McKenzie. "Fact Check: Claim about Alyssa Carson Preparing to Go to Mars Is Missing Context." USA TODAY, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/07/12/fact-check-post-alyssa-carson-mars-preparation-lacks-context/7879648002/. Accessed 24 May 2024.

Sandra Fan on LinkedIn: On the Left: American Model Kendall Jenner in a Swimsuit Showing What For… | 185 Comments. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sandrafan_on-the-left-american-model-kendall-jenner-activity-7190242265003352064-8iqd. Accessed 24 May 2024.

Sciences, International Institute of Astronautical. Alyssa Carson – International Institute for Astronautical Sciences. https://astronauticsinstitute.org/members/acarson/. Accessed 24 May 2024.

Staff, Snopes. "Copypasta." Snopes, 21 Aug. 2019, https://www.snopes.com//collections/copypasta/.