While Mr. Bridenstine did not identify a specific person, he said that women are at the forefront of the U.S. space agency’s upcoming plans.

But we guess, probably he is hinting towards the NASA’s youngest astronaut, Blueberry.

Blueberry is the codename given to 17-year-old Alyssa Carson, NASA’s youngest astronaut in training. And she’s dedicated herself to preparing for a very important mission: the first manned trip to Mars.

In the year 2033, when Alyssa is 32, she’ll be on the first NASA trip to Mars. There she and her teammates will develop their own personal habitat, grow their own food, conduct experiments, and look for any signs of Martian life over two to three years.

The cool thing about Alyssa is that she’s preparing to go into space her whole life, ever since she was first inspired by a Mars-themed episode of her favourite cartoon at nine years old. She found the Red Planet so cool that she began watching videos of rovers landing there, and even had a giant map of Mars on her bedroom wall.

Through her teen years, Alyssa began attending every space camp she could find. She was the first to complete NASA’s passport program, which requires a person to visit all 14 of NASA's visitor centers and have their “passport” stamped at each location.

“I did the same thing as other kids, like switching my mind about careers, wanting to be a teacher or the president one day,” she told Teen Vogue in an interview. “But the way I always thought about it was I would become an astronaut, go to Mars, come back, and then be a teacher or the president.”

Of course, Alyssa can’t legally be an astronaut until she’s 18, but NASA’s got her covered. Under the PoSSUM project `Polar Orbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere`, and other similar programs, she’s undergoing preliminary astronaut training, so she can be better prepared when the time comes. This includes things like micro-gravity training, learning about NASA’s manned and unmanned spacecraft, and more.

Of course, the ambitious goal also comes at a pretty steep price. Because she’s effectively going to be offworld for about four years, she’s been advised not to get romantically involved with anyone. “The idea of having a family, that is something NASA would want you to consider once you come back from Mars,” she said in the interview. “It’s a place we’ve never been to, and it’s a dangerous mission. Having someone you love on earth, that’s a distraction.”

But if all goes off without a hitch, Alyssa could very well be the first teenager in space, as she’s bound to go to the International Space Station for training. And after that could be the ride she’s always dreamed of.