On 11 Nov 2003 23:06:03 -0800,
(Dan Huizenga) wrote:
What are generally the minimum requirements to become an astronaut on
the shuttle?
From http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/.../asseltrn.html
For mission specialists and pilot astronaut candidates, the education and
experience requirements are at least a bachelor's degree from an accredited
institution in engineering, biological science, physical science, or
mathematics ... three years of related, progressively responsible professional
experience must follow the degree. An advanced degree is desirable and may be
substituted for all or part of the experience requirement (i.e., master's
degree = 1 year of work experience, doctoral degree = 3 years of experience).
Mission specialists have similar requirements to pilot astronauts, except that
the qualifying physical is a NASA Class II space physical, which is similar to
a military of civilian Class II flight physical and includes the following
specific standards: for vision-distance visual acuity - 20/200 or better
uncorrected, correctable to 20/20, each eye. For Blood pressure-Same as for
Pilots [140/90 measured in a sitting position]. Height requirements for mission
specialists are between 58.5 and 76 inches.
In my case, I'd probably be looking at mission
specialist, since I'm going to school for engineering.
Engineers make up about 75% of all applicants. If you have a degree in
something else, that'd help.
What level of
education is necessary – masters, doctorate?
Officially, only a bachelor's is needed, but in practice, they take a majority
of PhDs.
Does military experience
help (I've been contemplating the Navy Nuclear OCP for post-grad)?
Sure won't hurt....
Are there any particular fields of study career paths that are more
favorable than others?
Yes. The trick is to find out specifically what NASA is looking for and then
retroactively take that career path. Sometimes they're looking for MDs, for
example, and other times they're not. If you're an MD in the year that they're
looking for them, your chances are much better than if you're an MD in the year
that they're not looking.
After one has attained the necessary
qualifications, how does he apply,
By going to the website at
http://nasajobs.nasa.gov/astronauts/application.htm
and is it better to wait until
after becoming highly qualified, or to begin application as soon as is
feasibly possible?
If you don't mind getting rejected over and over, it doesn't hurt to keep
applying. It also shows persistence. You never know, you might have that one
skill they're looking for even before you get to be "highly qualified".
What percentage of applicants are actually
accepted?
In recent years, you'll get something like 2500 qualified applicants (they meet
all the minimum criteria). From those, they'll check backgrounds on the highly
qualified and then choose around 120 to bring down for medical tests and
interviews. From that group, roughly 12-25 will be chosen.
A lot questions, I know, but I never managed to let go of
the typical ten-year-old dream of becoming an astronaut, and as it's
nearly time for me to graduate from college, I need to start making
some decisions about where to go in life. Admittedly, I think that
any plans I make for this will probably go just about as well as my
plans to get into MIT or Rose-Hulman did (read: they don't get past
the application), but it's something that I'd like to have a little
more information on nonetheless. Any insights into this process that
you are able to provide are appreciated.
There's a lot of good info at the following web sites:
http://nasajobs.nasa.gov/astronauts/
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/more.html
You can also join a mailing list for "AsHos", or "astronaut hopefuls" at
http://www.ashos.org/index2.html, they have a lot of good stuff in the archives
submitted by people who went through the interview processes.
--
Michael R. Grabois #
http://chili.cjb.net #
http://wizardimps.blogspot.com
"People say losing builds character. That's the stupidest thing I ever
heard. All losing does is suck. " -- Charles Barkley, 9/29/96