The 2017 NASA Astronaut Class are photographed at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The group includes doctors, scientists, engineers, pilots and military officers.Via Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - NASA chose 12 new astronauts on Wednesday from its biggest pool of applicants ever, hand-picking seven men and five women who could one day fly aboard the nation's next generation of spacecraft.

The astronaut class of 2017 includes doctors, scientists, engineers, pilots and military officers from Anchorage to Miami and points in between.

They've worked in submarines, emergency rooms, university lecture halls, jet cockpits and battleships. They range in age from 29 to 42, and they typically have led the pack.

"It makes me personally feel very inadequate when you read what these folks have done," said NASA's acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot.

US Vice-President Mike Pence welcomed the group during a televised ceremony at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and praised their "excellence" and "courage". He also offered President Donald Trump's congratulations.

More than 18,300 people threw their hats into the space ring during a brief application period about 18 months ago. That's more than double the previous record of 8,000 set in 1978, when the space shuttles were close to launching.

The 12 selected on Wednesday will join 44 astronauts already in the NASA corps.

Hitching rides

United States astronauts have not launched from home soil since 2011, when the space shuttles were retired, thus the low head count. US astronauts have been hitching rides aboard Russian spacecraft in the meantime, but that could change next year.

After two years of training, the newbies may end up riding commercial rockets to the International Space Station or flying beyond the moon in NASA's Orion spacecraft. Their ultimate destination could be Mars.

SpaceX and Boeing are building capsules capable of carrying astronauts to the space station and back as soon as next year. A launch engineer and senior manager for SpaceX, Robb Kulin, is among the new astronauts. He's also worked as an ice driller in Antarctica and a commercial fisherman in Alaska.

"Hopefully, one day, I actually fly on a vehicle that ... I got to design," Kulin said.

Kulin and his classmates may be in for a long wait. Some members of the class of 2009 have yet to launch.

This is NASA's 22nd group of astronauts. The first group, the original Mercury 7 astronauts, was chosen in 1959.

Altogether, 350 US citizens have been selected to become astronauts. Requirements include US citizenship; degrees in science, technology, engineering or math; and at least three years of experience or 1,000 hours of piloting jets.

Xinhua - Ap