Want to Reach Space, the Final Frontier? NASA is Now Hiring Astronauts!

A lot of kids growing up have always wanted to become astronauts. If you have always dreamed of going to the moon or the ISS or International Space Station, you may get your chance soon, as the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) is recruiting. Successful applicants are slated to visit both of these locations!

For its next batch of candidates for astronaut classes, NASA started accepting applicants on March 2, and United States citizens may apply until the end of this month (March 31, 11:59 pm EDT [or April 1 0459 GMT]). The qualifications and job details are listed here. NASA is expecting to have its final choices selected by mid-2021.

NASA has not announced how many astronauts it will hire or recruit, but there is no question that the competition is fierce. Its last recruitment cycle in 2017 only produced a mere 12 from the 18,300 candidates who applied. Out of these 12 successful applicants, 11 had graduated (one had resigned during the training period) and are now eligible for spaceflight this year. This is how they trained and what it is like to be an astronaut.

Qualification requirements are rigorous, as can be expected, and successfully chosen candidates often way exceed the required skill sets. Aside from the basic education and eligibility qualifications outlined in the job details as shown in the link above, it is worth noting that NASA also demands its candidates to have two years of related work in their field that is "progressively responsible," or, as an alternative, 1,000 hours of command pilot flying in a jet.

An extended spaceflight physical is also required, since successful candidates will spend at least six months to a full year in space in the ISS. In this regard, NASA asks candidates about experience in dangerous or isolated conditions, as this will be useful in the new astronauts' stint in space.

Basic training usually lasts for two and a half years prior to spaceflight mission eligibility. For ISS missions, at least 18 months is needed for crew training prior to liftoff. Thus, the applicants who will successfully become astronauts in this latest batch will only be able to fly after 2024, to coincide with NASA's first crewed moon landings under the Artemis program. Under this program, NASA's goal is to have a permanent lunar presence, as well to successfully undertake a manned flight to Mars by mid-2030s.

Steve Koerner is the director of flight operations of NASA and the astronaut selection board chairperson at the NASA Johnson Space Center, located in Houston. He says that it is not an easy task to train to become an astronaut, because it is not certainly easy to be one. Among the thousands who had dreamed of becoming astronauts since childhood, an applicant is competing for the chance of a lifetime to go into space, and many of these hopefuls have worked towards this goal for as long as they can actually remember. In other words, saying that the competition will be rough is an understatement.

But, Koerner optimistically quips that among those thousands of candidates are NASA's next batch of astronauts, and he is looking forward to meeting them.

The application page can be found here.