Former national track champion Christina Burch is taking a break from professional cycling and heading into space as a NASA astronaut.

The 35-year-old won the national individual pursuit title in 2016 and 2017 and has represented the United States at the World Championships and Pan American Games, winning two gold medals.

She used to race cyclocross and was also a prominent gravel rider, having founded the "Gravel Notes" collective in recent years. However, cycling took a backseat when it was announced that she had been selected as one of 10 out of 12,000 applicants and enrolled at NASA for the first time in four years.

"Today we welcome 10 new explorers, 10 members of NASA's 2021 astronaut candidate class, the Artemis Generation. Each candidate has "the right stuff," but together they represent the tenets of our nation: and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said at Monday's ceremony.

Burch has an academic background, earning a bachelor's degree in mathematics and biochemistry and molecular biophysics from the University of Arizona, followed by a doctorate in biotechnology. She then took a teaching position in California, but decided to focus on cycling in hopes of competing in the 2020 Olympics.

She began her new career in January, undergoing two years of initial training, after which she could be assigned to missions to deep space and the moon.

"As you can see from the amazing classmates sitting next to me, there really is more than one path to becoming a NASA astronaut candidate. And while my path as a bioengineer and cyclist may seem a little outlandish, it is really the skills I have gained from those experiences that have gotten me here," Birch said at the new admission ceremony.

"My advice would be to find something that you're really interested in, something that really interests you, something that you're passionate about, and explore it deeply. And I think if you keep doing the little things every day, it will become something so big that one day you will be sitting here as a NASA astronaut candidate."

Burch's partner is fellow track competitor Ashton Lambie, who revealed that he received word of his NASA call-up on October 22 during the track world championships, where he won the individual Pursuit world title.

"On October 22, between IP rounds of the World Championships in Roubaix, I was in my hotel room eating a baguette. On the other side of the world, (Christina) got a call from Nasa asking if I wanted to be an astronaut and called me. We were both really surprised," Lambie wrote on social media Monday.

"What do you think about the World Championships when your partner is going into space?"

Sitting in the stairwell in our rainbow jerseys, we talked about the biggest day in our little family history so far. Since no official announcement had been made until today, we had to move to Houston and be very quiet. [21] [22] "So now I can say that this person that I love so much is going to start training at the Johnson Space Center and we have moved to Texas and (she) is wonderful. We are overjoyed and can't wait to share it all with you."