Career Spotlight: Out of this world

The last call for astronaut candidates to serve NASA on the International Space Station (ISS) was in fall 2015. More than 18,000 applications were received by the February 2016 deadline, and just 12 made the cut to report to Houston’s Johnson Space Center as the class of 2017. They have been in training for the past two years. The first U.S. astronauts were selected in 1959; only 338 astronauts have been selected to date.

Astronaut candidates—“as-cans”—train at NASA learning about NASA spacecraft, taking Russian language courses, flying and maintaining T–38 jet aircraft, studying wilderness survival, and learning how to spacewalk, according to Everett L. Bolduc, an ISS instructor for NASA. As-cans are federal employees and live in the Houston area. Months of training are also required in Russia (since the United States does not have a shuttle program, all launches to the space station are aboard Russian spacecraft). Astronauts live at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City. After two years of training, candidates are considered astronauts, are permanent federal employees, and undergo two more years of training in specific tasks for associated missions.

Bolduc emphasizes that NASA looks for candidates who are well-rounded. “You may have a doctorate, two master’s degrees, and graduated top of your class, but you still can be tasked to fix the space toilet. You need to be the type of individual who another pilot would have no problems sharing a cockpit—from New York to Los Angeles in a Cessna 172,” he said. “Extended spaceflight can require living in close quarters with others, sometimes with people who may not speak English as their first language. Having a friendly, easy-going personality can go a long way.”

NASA is not currently seeking astronaut candidates, but you can watch for the next opportunity online
astronauts.nasa.gov