Somewhere in his family’s archives is a picture of 16-year-old Josh Cassada with his head in a cardboard space helmet.

Turns out the silly shot snapped more than 20 years ago foreshadowed events to come.

The 39-year-old White Bear Lake native was named one of eight members of NASA’s 2013 astronaut trainee class Monday.

More than 6,000 people applied for the limited spots, the second-largest number received by the space agency. They will report for duty in August at Johnson Space Center in Houston and join 49 other astronauts at NASA.

The group is the agency’s first new class of astronauts in four years.

“It’s something he has been after for a long time and he achieved it,” said Jack Cassada, Josh Cassada’s father. “I need to dig up that picture.”

Jack Cassada and his wife, Darlene, still own a home in White Bear Lake, though they are now considered Florida residents.

Josh Cassada could not be reached for comment Monday.

“As parents we’d like to take credit for it, but this is really about (Josh’s) drive and desire. As he does with everything, he went after this with about 110 to 120 percent,” Jack Cassada said.

Though born in California, Josh Cassada and his sister, Jessie, grew up in White Bear Lake. He graduated from White Bear Lake Area High School in 1991 and attended Albion College in Michigan, where he earned an undergraduate degree in physics.

He went on to receive his master’s and doctorate degrees in high-energy physics from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

He followed his father’s footsteps in 2000 when he joined the U.S. Navy.

After serving a tour in Iraq, the naval aviator worked as the Navy’s acceptance and test pilot for airplanes coming off the Boeing production line in Seattle, his father said.

Casada recently moved to Michigan to run an electronics firm he co-founded called Quantum Opus.

Josh Cassada is one of four men in the new class, all of whom have military backgrounds. Four women were also selected, including the first female fighter pilot to become an astronaut in nearly two decades.

The ratio represents the largest percentage of female astronauts selected by NASA.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said the new candidates will help lead the first human mission to an asteroid in the 2020s, and then Mars, sometime in the following decade. They also may be among the first to fly to the space station aboard commercial spacecraft launched from the United States, he said. Russia ferries the astronauts now.

“These new space explorers asked to join NASA because they know we’re doing big, bold things here — developing missions to go farther into space than ever before,” Bolden said in a statement.

Jack Cassada said he doesn’t know which potential space adventure most excites his son.

“I wanted to send him to the moon as a teenager, but that was me,” Jack Cassada joked. “As he does with everything, I am sure he is keeping all his options open. The first step will be to get through the arduous training.”

This report includes information from the Associated Press. Sarah Horner can be reached at 651-228-5539.

Follow her at twitter.com/hornsarah.