Iranian American Jasmin Moghbeli is selected by NASA for next generation of astronauts

At 15, she attended an advanced space camp, cementing her ambition to one day reach for the stars.

She graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied aeronautical engineering. But her parents were concerned to learn she then planned to become a military pilot (a well-trodden path to the astronaut corps).

Moghbeli signed up in 2005 - just four years after the September 11 attacks, and her parents were worried about what their daughter might face as a person of Middle Eastern heritage.

'But once I joined, they gave me absolute support,' she said, crediting the backing of her family, and later her partner Sam, for her success.