this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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[–] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 72 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Hijacking.

I actually went through the Canadian Space Agency's astronaut application a few years ago. Made it through the initial screening and into medical certifications. Got downselected where there were about 300 candidates remaining for two positions. But I got to see a little of the process. Here are some specifics items to add to the list, some of which will be relevant if you're trying to support your child in their dreams (and have the resources to do it).

(1) 20/20 vision. They were allowing people who had laser surgery to correct to 20/20, or people who could be corrected. (2) Be a pilot of any kind whatsoever -- even a crop duster -- but ideally military. Kids can do air cadets, or take gliding lessons or similar.
(3) Have SCUBA certifications.
(4) Have radio certifications (even HAM radio works, but more advanced is better).
(5) Speak at least one other language that is used in one of the world's space agencies -- two are better. Russian and Japanese/French would be a good choice. Russian may fall down the list of relevance soon.
(6) Have experience in an "operational environment" -- basically, are you going to go crazy cooped up in the space station with only a few people for months? For kids this might mean backcountry camping trips. For adults, this often means being deployed somewhere, in a military or similar context.
(7) Have a medical degree, preferentially, but any STEM Ph.D. will probably work. This means making sure you select courses in school that lead that direction.

I went to grad school for planetary science -- naively thinking that I could outcompete all the people dreaming of the same thing. Make sure you have a fallback plan -- something you can pivot to -- when it doesn't pan out :)

That said, all of this may become entirely irrelevant very quickly if Starship starts ferrying a hundred people to space every day.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Interesting. Do you know why they would prefer a medical degree to say an engineering degree?

[–] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 day ago

Because no one does any actual engineering in space. At best you're a technician running other people's projects; at worst, you have to MacGyver something. But every ISS crew needs a medical specialist on it, and a backup specialist in case they need to work on their medical specialist. So it gives you the highest odds.

Now if you wanted to work at JPL designing probes, that's a different story. But you're not going to space.

[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm missing a lot of these things, but I've decided that my logical next step is to bootstrap Spain's and Mexico's space programs. (This is sarcasm. I have a snowballs chance in hell of going to space, and I'm okay with that.)

[–] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

Spain is part of the ESA. If you have citizenship there, there's a nearly-zero (but not actually zero) possibility of getting into their astronaut selection class. But more likely SpaceX starts taking passengers and the whole question is moot.

I decided that my own path was also unlikely, but I chose a field of study that would take me to some pretty fun places on Earth. Can't explore Mars, so might as well do the high arctic, the Atacama desert, etc. :)

I want to be an astronaut :>