NASA announced today that it is looking for its next class of astronaut candidates.
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By the time the new class is eligible to fly, Boeing and SpaceX should be launching four-person crews to the station from Cape Canaveral, complementing Russia’s three-seat Soyuz spacecraft. “We encourage all qualified applicants to learn more about the opportunities for astronauts at NASA and apply to join our flight operations team”. They include the worldwide Space Station, the Orion deep-space exploration vehicle and two commercial crew spacecraft now in development by USA companies. This is in anticipation of human spaceflight returning to American soil.
The current and upcoming generations of space fliers will be considered for missions to the global Space Station, which has housed human inhabitants for 15 consecutive years, has served as a laboratory for over 1,700 microgravity experiments and offers a way to test the requirements of supporting humans in space (which will be extremely relevant for longer-duration trips to places like Mars).
Candidates must hold a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution in engineering, biological science, physical science or mathematics; an advanced degree is preferred.
Astronauts agree that they are willing to accept the risks that come with space travel because they “believe in the mission of space exploration and think the risk is well worth the benefit”.
(How fantastic would it be if 50% of the newest NASA applicants were women?) Throw your hat in the ring, and you could be one of the first people to put boot-prints on the Red Planet.
If you stand between 62 and 75 inches tall, have a military, science or technical background and dream of going to Mars, you might have the right stuff to be a NASA astronaut.
Since then, the number has fallen even lower, to 47 active astronauts. The agency will accept applications from December 14 through mid-February. Pilots candidates must have 1,000 hours flying a jet aircraft, while mission specialists needs at least three years of professional experience in their fields. But take note that NASA has only had 300 astronauts in total.
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Yes, the US space agency is surely aware a few might have concerns in light of the fictional travails of Mark Watney, protagonist of the recent book and film of the same name, The Martian, who gets stuck on the Red Planet and has to figure out how to survive there all alone.
