Calling All Astronauts: NASA Has a Job Opening For You

NewsFeed is seriously questioning our decision to major in English.

  • Share
  • Read Later
NASA/Reuters/Corbis

The International Space Station could be your new office.

Astronauts! They’re just like us. Well, at least while they’re job hunting.

The National Aeronautics & Space Administration has an opening for an astronaut based in the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. They’ve also gone the contemporary route for job recruitment by posting the position on the job website USAJobs. Folded in with ads for positions such as IT specialist and medical technologist, the open call posting is seeking candidates who have a “sense of daring” and a “probing mind” for a position that, unsurprisingly, could require “frequent travel.” Of course, there are more concrete requirements as well, including U.S. citizenship, a bachelor’s degree in engineering, science or math and at least three years worth of relevant professional experience.

(MORE: Russia Launches a Rocket Into a Blizzard)

Does this describe your skill set? Are you looking for work? Well, you could be one of the lucky applicants who are thoroughly vetted and selected to join the next class of astronauts expected to work on the International Space Station and, perhaps, beyond. The selection process is apparently quite stringent as NASA’s last recruitment round drew thousands of applications for only nine spots. Clearly, competition will be stiff.

“If you’re selected and you make it through that process, the experience is well worth the wait, I think,” Janet Kavandi, director of flight crew operations at Johnson Space Center told MSNBC. “Anyone who’s been to space can say that it was definitely worth all the hard work to get there.” NewsFeed, thwarted not by disinterest but by our useless liberal arts and humanities degrees, is already jealous of the future space jet-setters.

PHOTOS: The Mars500 Experiment Ends