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The "8 Balls" have landed in NASA's center pocket.

On Tuesday (Aug. 20), eight new astronaut candidates — nicknamed the "Eight Balls" — were formally welcomed to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they're set to begin two years of basic training.

"For more than 50 years, from the early days of Gemini and the Apollo moon landings to the historic achievements of the 30-year space shuttle era and today's International Space Station, the Johnson Space Center has been home to America's human spaceflight program," Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator and a former astronaut, said Tuesday morning at a press conference. [Photos: NASA's 2013 Astronaut Class in Pictures]

"The new astronauts we're introducing today are critical to achieving our ambitious goals," Bolden added. "They will help us continue to lead the world in exploration, and they'll become role models for boys and girls, men and women, from all over the world. Their journey begins now and the nation, as it always has, will be right beside them reaching for the stars."

Chosen in June from an applicant pool of more than 6,000, NASA's 21st astronaut class includes four men (Josh Cassada, Victor Glover, Nick Hague and Andrew Morgan) and four women (Christina Hammock, Nicole Mann, Anne McClain and Jessica Meir).

"These next generation American astronauts will...have an opportunity to fly on new commercial space transportation systems that are now under development," Bolden said. "More importantly, they will be among those who plan and perhaps carry out first-ever human missions to an asteroid and on to Mars."

"Of course, it all begins with preparing them for missions to the International Space Station," he said.

Following a long-standing NASA tradition, the "Eight Balls" received their nickname from the prior class of astronauts,"The Chumps" selected in 2009, who are now beginning to receive their first assignments to fly to the space station.

"The eight ball [in billiards or pool] is played last, and the hope from the preceding class is that the [2013 astronaut candidates] will be assigned after all of them [fly]," Bob Behnken, chief of the Astronaut Office at Johnson Space Center, told collectSPACE.com.