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NASA file
The Class of 2004's astronaut candidates tumble during a zero-gravity airplane flight. Another class was selected in 2009, and yet another group will be picked in a process starting in November.
NASA says it's opening the application process for astronaut candidates in early November, for the first time since the shuttle fleet's retirement this summer.
Even though the shuttles will never fly again, and even though astronauts will be traveling to the International Space Station exclusively on Russian spacecraft for at least the next three years, it takes years to train a new crop of spacefliers and get them into the rotation. The class of candidates to be selected over the next year and a half could conceivably be among the first visitors to a near-Earth asteroid in the mid-2020s.
"For scientists, engineers and other professionals who have always dreamed of experiencing spaceflight, this is an exciting time to join the astronaut corps," Janet Kavandi, director of flight crew operations at NASA's Johnson Space Center. said in today's announcement on the selection process. "This next class will support missions to the station and will arrive via transportation systems now in development. They also will have the opportunity to participate in NASA's continuing exploration programs that will include missions beyond low Earth orbit."
Duane Ross, the manager for NASA's astronaut candidate programs, told me that NASA was still working on the detailed timeline for the application and selection process — but when it's time to put in your application, you'll click on a link posted on the space agency's Astronaut Selection website. A tentative timeline suggests that the application deadline will be sometime early next year, that the candidates would be chosen in the first half of 2013, and that they'd report for duty that summer.
How many will be chosen? Ross can't say at this point, but he's guessing that the process will go much as it did in 2009, the last time NASA selected a new class of astronauts. About 3,500 people applied, somewhere around 110 were selected to undergo an initial interview, and in the end, nine Americans were selected to join NASA's astronaut corps. They were joined by 10 others from Japan, Canada and Europe.
Ross estimated that NASA's next class might have eight to 12 astronaut candidates. "It's not going to be a big number," he said.
Today's announcement comes less than a month after a report from the National Research Council warned that NASA may not have enough astronauts to meet the demands of future missions, to the space station as well as beyond Earth orbit. That report noted that NASA had 150 spacefliers in 1999, but only 61 active-duty astronauts in 2011. The end of the 30-year space shuttle program accelerated the exodus.
When the Class of 2009 was being selected, NASA already knew that crop of candidates would never fly on the shuttle, so the selection criteria were tweaked to focus on the requirements for long-duration space station missions. "The mission hasn't changed since last time," Ross said.
"The key things we'll be looking for is evidence that folks can come in and work in an operational environment," he said. That means you don't have to be a fighter jock to apply. "There's lots of ways you can get that experience," Ross said.
However, you do have to have a certain kind of the Right Stuff. "A bachelor's degree in engineering science or math and three years of relevant professional experience are required in order to be considered," NASA said. "Typically, successful applicants have significant qualifications in engineering or science, or extensive experience flying high-performance jet aircraft."
If you're selected, you'll have to relocate to Houston. You'll have to give up your old job. The annual salaries for civilians range from $64,724 to $155,500 — that is, GS-11 to GS-14 on the federal civil-service pay scale. Some travel will be required. But if you're really thinking of applying, my guess is that none of these practical considerations will matter much to you.
Update for 5:45 p.m. ET Oct. 7: NASA spokesman Michael Curie says that the space agency "still is evaluating the number of astronauts it will select in the new class, but we expect the number to be between nine and 15."
More about the astronaut's life:
- How not to be a space slob
- What's up for the astronauts?
- Don't worry, kids, you can still be an astronaut
- Dozens apply for Virgin Galactic's space pilot jobs
- Boeing selects a rocket, looks for astronauts to fly on it
Additional information about the Astronaut Candidate Program is available by calling the Astronaut Selection Office at 281-483-5907.
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
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The only real concern for those of us who would seriously try for this is the fact that maybe a quarter of one percent of the people that apply actually have what they consider to be the "right stuff".
yeah, you pretty much have to be at the top of your field to get considered I'm sure, and even then there's no guarantee you'll make it in. Definitely a super elite group, I envy them! :-) Maybe once we get enough Bigelow stations up in orbit I can go be a janitor on one of them or something lol.
I'm not sure why people would bother anymore. Without a goal that's beyond the moon, we're all stuck here. If our government can't get a Manhattan Project on propulsion technologies going and get some breakthroughs, then there's really no need for astronauts, as none of us are ever going to need to leave the planet. The goal is space colonization. The means is propulsion. Without propulsion, you cannot lift cargo and astronauts into space. Propulsion is the weak link in all of our space programs. Solve that problem, that key log, and you will send humanity into space. Fail to do so, and we will soon be at each other's throats for ever-shrinking resources. This is not a curved test for humanity. This is pass or fail. Your choice.
I definitely agree a huge research effort should be put into new propulsion systems, both for in space and getting to space. I think a lot of the testing for space only systems will of course need to be done in orbit or probably even at one of the Lagrange points for a true zero G environment.
The problem is that there's just no air. The kool thing about space travel in sci-fi is that people can always walk around freely on the planets when they get there, but we'll never be able to, without cumbersome suits - even if we could build indoor habitats on the Moon or Mars. It's hard for a lot of people to get past that. So space will always seem like a place to go to, carry out experiments, and get back as soon as you can.
There are standing waves of energy in space, I'm certain of it, but they are vibrating at frequencies beyond our current detectible range. Once this is energy is found, and tapped, energy will be limitless. Why do you think everything in the universe can never be at absolute zero temperature? ... Because the fundamental composition of space itself is constantly moving, and must be so due to this energy. The limitless amount of energy in the universe, can be found within the universe itself. Mark my words, and Tesla knew this as well.
Doug - I suggest you do some Research on Bigelow Aerospace. Their station designs would be ideal for orbital or deeper space research facilities, and creating artificial gravity on those stations would be fairly easy, while a station module in the center could be used for the zero g experiments.
brokin
They may say it is for both, but the thermal requirements for both usages is very different. One has to deal with thermal heating and cooling cycles of 90 minutes and BEO applications require one of a much larger time period.
'
Brokinarrow, no, I hate research. I just like to observe the world from my window, and from here I can see that, for large numbers of people to support an activity, it needs to appeal to them - either directly, through their shared experience, or vicariously, through their shared imagination. What people call 'political will' can't be mustered up for doing something that only a tiny number of people want to do - namely, spend long periods in cramped artificial micro-environments. I hope humans go to Mars for the accomplishment, perhaps a number of times, as they did the Moon. But these ideas of colonizing, occupying and mining celestial bodies seem to me to be fantasies of people who have trouble reconciling reality with fiction.
"The kool thing about space travel in sci-fi is that people can always walk around freely on the planets when they get there, but we'll never be able to, without cumbersome suits..."
And yet people colonized the Arctic, 10,000 or so years ago in cumbersome suits...
But they could always breathe..
NASA doesn't need astronauts when they can rent Cosmonauts, just like the Russian Rockets NASA uses for Spaceflight.
NASA needs to go away ASAP.
so what is the point of paying another country to develop the technology, and to fly that technology.
If you want to get rid of NASA, so be it (but that would pretty much irreparably harm the aerospace industry in the US because the industry STILL relies on NASA for basic aeronautical research but hey, if that is what the people want, then fine) but if you are going to get rid of it, just get rid of it. No point using the taxpayers money to fund a foreign nations space program.
Perhaps NASA should become more of just a research/large projects division, and a new agency could be created to help foster the private sector space companies. I see a lot more promise and progress with the private space industry than I do with NASA (at least with human space flight) over the next 20 years.
brokin
hmmm the radical right doesn't want anything to do with the government. Hell I guess SpaceX shouldn't be getting those contracts with NASA because OMG that is government spending.
I don't think that we need a new agency, I think we need more creativity from the industry than what we are seeing at the moment.
As far as the promise with NASA, they can only do what congress says they can do. People can bitch and complain all they want, but when Congress not only determines your budget, but also what you can do with that budget, there isn't a heck of a lot you can do when the end result is mud.
Kram, just where have you been? there's a whole new "deep space" sls (man rated heavy lift rocket) being developed. Somebody has got to fly it!!
Good points Jonathan.
Here is the solution, hire some of the NFL's elite. The tatted up, druggie wannabe thug gangsta's, they only want 20 to 30 million to play once.
Like astronaut Leland Melvin? Degree in engineering, specializing in robotics and materials science? Played for the Lions and the Cowboys?
Flown twice on the Shuttle Atlantis. And for the past year Melvin has been NASA's Associate Administrator for the Office of Education.
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/melvin.html
NASA could use more like him.
he was selected by the Lions, but pulled his hamstring in training camp, and was then subsequently released. Participated in Training camps for both the toronto argonauts and dallas cowboys but never played a game in professional football.
Not dissin him on that though, he certainly isn't the stereotypical football jock in university, he got an education, which can certainly be considered unusual.
believe it or not, most professional football players get a great education... especially in the Pac-10, Big-10, and ACC schools.... where a big percentage of them( I know theres always the dummies in there in small numbers) get a great education. No need to act like a nerd and assume all jocks are stupid
Why don't we send all the politicians up there? Keep them away from Earth.
Space flight is just getting started. Commercial ventures are getting in on it. Thats the real plan for space exploration. Theres no money in a government Space agency, and its a huge burden. Theres more money than on 5 planets out in space, just waiting to be mined. They are going Private. Less oversight, less responsibility, way more money to be made.
NASA will be phased into the Space police for American interests, and handle all the government needs they dont want to contract out to the private guys.
Correction! There are very "ASTRONAUTS" left or made today. Most of what we have are "space travellers."
An astronaut, a true astronaut, is a United States Military Pilot. Marines, Navy, Air Force.
All of those scientists who go into space to see how beans sprout or watch hamsters run around the wheel in zero gravity are NOT astronauts.
Well we will just make sure that NASA is aware of your redefinition of what an astronaut is because I don't think they got your memo.
The whole point in Space travel are the experiments done while up there including the effects on the human body . I hate to bust your romantic view of astronauts but US military pilots are just the bus drivers that point the shuttle at the runway on the way back
That is very one sided of you. Most astronauts have a military background. Most, if not all, of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts were previous or active military chosen because they had the strength, skill and determination needed to make the mission a success. That said, every shuttle mission carried former or active military to work with the payloads, experiments and to actually fly the orbiter in space based on their skills as pilots. Civilians alike have done the same jobs but I can hardly agree they only used military to line the shuttle with the runway, especially since it was mainly flown by the onboard computers up to a couple thousand feet before the pilot took control to land. You don't give the military enough credit, because they have been the mainstay of Astronaut choices since the beginning in October '58. They are the Right Stuff.
Amn
Well with the shuttle, the astronauts did lower the landing gear. The rest of the flight profile was largely automated. But space missions have rarely if ever really had much in the way of manual flight, with Apollo 13 being an exception with several mid course maneuvers made without the help of the guidance computer.
Where is the money coming from? the taxpayers?
It it's NASA making the call, then yes.
Yes, the taxpayers. I should mention that astronauts from the military are detailed to NASA but receive their military pay.
I don't think I'd be interested in a giant fire cracker. They'd have to come up with something better like reversed alien technology or release some of the 6000 suppressed patents. Then they need to get the military & Nazi's out of NASA or close it down and let private enterprise take over, at least they'll show us crystal clear pictues instead of the grainy crap we been seeing since the program got started. Maybe we will finally see what they've been hiding with google the north and south poles. We pay so much for such little information. Astronaut? What a joke.
Take a little time to educate yourself on all the things we use daily that have been the result of our investment in NASA .Granted there might not be too many lying around the trailer park
Conspiracy theorist? HEY, anybody got a fin-foil hat for this guy?
why the interest in near earth asteriods? do we intend to harness their kinetic energy and hop on board with scientific instruments that would explore our solar system or is their concern about the need to track the space behemoths and explore ways of obviating disasters?
Because a rendezvous with an asteroid would not require the development of a separate landing vehicle and logistically would be a lot cheaper than say a mission to mars. It would essentially be a mission to mars, without the development of a landing vehicle.
I kind of like that idea of hopping aboard and floating around the solarsystem though. At least using it as a velocity boost on the way to somewhere/thing.
There is no reason to hop on an asteroid or comet for a trip around the Solar System, unless you are interested in changes to that comet or asteroid as it orbits.
To land on a asteroid or comet you must match the velocity and orbit of that body. To land you are already going the same speed and in the same direction; there is nothing more to gain.
Hop on if you want to see that body on a full trip around Sol, sure, but if you want to head somewhere in the neighbourhood - it's better to just go.
Matching the velocity would probably be the easy part of landing on an asteroid. The hard part would be compensating for its tumble.
From my understanding, there isn't much to comets to land on. Most are very loose amalgamations of ice and rock.
Two missions have already soft-landed on asteroids, so while difficult it's within our current tech.
"Landing" on a small comet may be more like "docking" - we may need a means to grapple to the surface so as to not float away.
NASA needs to start sending rockets filled with all the nucular waste from our power plants in to the sun which would burn up before they get near it, its a nucular planet and no harm to us . We curently have no way or no plans to evan build a plant to destroy what we have stored at each power plant. What will happen when terrorist crash a plane full of explosives in to a stock pile.
yes, because all we need is to have one of those rockets explode during liftoff
Merlin, that's MUCH harder to do than it is to say. I'd like all nuclear waste to be dispoed of safely too, but shooting it at the sun isn't the way. as Jonathon implies it's lift-off that's the rub!!
Yes! Get me out of here! Walk on an asteroid? How much? Times are tough!
A magnetic lift into orbit would help in future missions,, Just find a way around the existing politics of making the last generation of engineers and scientists NOT look like fools.. THIS has been worked on,, so it's not unknown... It just makes the big rocket people (oil) uncomfortable... It really is so simple....
Me! Me! Oh..Oh...make it me! I wanna be an astronaut.....and spend long weeks in space......and worry about life support failing.....and fear having my umbilical severed and hopelessly floating away..............................................................and puke up in zero gravity..........all over the console that controls everything ...................
............................................................................................ok maybe not.........
No need to get excited. The whole idea will get shelved in a year or two due to budget cuts anyway.
As much as I'd love to apply, my heart couldn't pass the tests...:-(
This is what 50 years of only Government Employees flying in space looks like. Want to fly in space in the so called great Capitalist nation of the United States of America? Then you must apply to the Communist institution call NASA, a relic of the Cold War, and become a Government Employee.
Don't want to quit your day job and become a Government Employee, and you still want to fly in Space? Well, a few years ago you could! Just purchase a ticket from those awful ex-Communist who became Capitalist and Privatized Manned Space Flight in the 1990s. Yes, you could buy a ticket from the Russians.
But, not any more. NASA has purchased all the Russian Space Tourist tickets to the Space Station for it's Government Employees. No longer can Tourist purchase tickets, because the government has outbid and already bought them all, so that they have time to build a new Communist Space Launch system.
I sure hope NASA doesn't get it's way and the second 50 years of Manned Space Flight is for Government Employees also.
NASA to applicants: Please, no astronauts who use diapers.
Hopefully, the next generation of astronauts will strap on NASA's new Space Launch System or Saturn VI:
They need to change the name to "AstroPassenger" and I guess they can quit selecting various Air-Force pilots now, since they won't be flying anything anymore.
NASA's new motto:
"To boldly sit, and wait for the Russians to take us where we want to go."
It's pathetic NASA, if we aren't making advances, then what's the point? It really does make me sad to know that we are now just passengers instead of pioneers. My anger makes me snarky, sorry.
I've got the right stuff, pick me! *burp*fart*
I wonder how many people who post on these message boards actually pay taxes. By the time they figure in various tax credits and loop-holes, they either pay no taxes, or they get refunds every year. By some estimates, 47% of Americans pay no taxes at all. Yet, amazingly, many of these same people complain about paying taxes for things like Medicaid, Social Security, Education, and yes, even NASA programs. Yet, these same non-tax payers have been enjoying the brilliant feats of NASA and America's space program for free, and for years.
Nothing truly worth doing is easy, or free. If we want to continue being the leader in technology and space exploration, we need to be more than willing to pay a little more in taxes to get it done. Otherwise, America will continue to fall behind as a nation.
I have no way of knowing whether your #'s are accurate, but I wiil tell you this. I've been working/paying taxes since I was 16 yrs. old (15 if you want to count a summer jobs program) I'm now 52. I only complain about welfare reciepients. I feel that if you've never paid taxes, you shouldn't be able to collect. that would stop illegals and chronic generational abusers.. (I realize there would be a few exceptions though.)
They already sent a dog, a monkey, and other creatures. I'll definitely apply, just in case they want to send a stupid.
I had a NASA application once, in the early '70s. I filled it out and was getting ready to mail it off when I realized that the accepted applicants had to move to and live in Huston, Texas. I would rather die than live in Texas. I never mailed it. So that was the end of my career as a NASA astronaut, no doubt I would have been selected!!