If you’ve ever dreamed of becoming an astronaut, apply to NASA now

By Georgina Torbet Published March 2, 2020

NASA's new class of astronauts – the first to graduate since the agency announced its Artemis program – appear on stage during their graduation ceremony at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Jan. 10, 2020. — NASA’s new class of astronauts — the first to graduate since the agency announced its Artemis program — appear on stage during their graduation ceremony at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on January 10, 2020. NASA

If you’ve ever fancied walking on the moon or being the first human to step on another planet, now’s your chance: NASA is opening applications for aspiring astronauts.

Recommended Videos

This is the first time in more than four years that the agency has invited applications for its highly competitive astronaut training program. It is seeking more astronauts for its Artemis program and its ongoing plans for a moon to mars mission.

“America is closer than any other time in history since the Apollo program to returning astronauts to the moon,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement. “We will send the first woman and next man to the lunar South Pole by 2024, and we need more astronauts to follow suit on the moon, and then Mars.

We’re looking for talented men and women from diverse backgrounds and every walk of life to join us in this new era of human exploration that begins with the Artemis program to the moon. If you have always dreamed of being an astronaut, apply now.”

Applications are open to U.S. citizens who have “a master’s degree in a STEM field, including engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science, or mathematics, from an accredited institution,” or equivalent education such as two years’ work toward a Ph.D., a doctorate of medicine, or completion of a test pilot program.

You also need to have two years of related professional experience or 1,000 hours of time logged as a pilot in a jet aircraft. Even if you fulfill these criteria, the competition for spots is intense: When applications for the program were last opened in 2015, a staggering 18,300 people applied.

“Becoming an astronaut is no easy task, because being an astronaut is no easy task,” Steve Koerner, NASA’s director of flight operations and chair of the Astronaut Selection Board at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in the statement. “Those who apply will likely be competing against thousands who have dreamed of and worked toward going to space for as long as they can remember. But somewhere among those applicants are our next astronauts, and we look forward to meeting you.”

If you think you’ve got what it takes, you can submit your application via the USAJobs website.

Georgina Torbet

Former Space Writer

Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…

Topics

Emerging Tech

An AI company paid humans to climax with a bot. It now claims big stress and focus wins.

The Masturbation Lab Report claims that 37% of adults are open to AI-guided masturbation and that the method actually yields big wins.

Back, Body Part, Person

I recently had a chat with a couple of college-going students, and during my interaction, I discovered some fascinating ways students are using AI these days. From helping with research to deploying it as a last-minute cheating tool, the spectrum is wide, but what really piqued my interest was when one of them admitted to occasionally asking ChatGPT to roleplay as her boyfriend. Now, the trend is not exactly brand new or shocking.

There is a whole community out there that finds a sense of companionship or relief in virtual characters that act as a companion, partner, wife, friend, mentor, or whatever it is that they are seeking. The idea is pretty controversial, but it's here to stay. Joi AI, a company that offers AI companions as a service, recently conducted an experiment to find out if erotic sessions guided by an AI bot can be as rewarding as the usual act of self-pleasuring using conventional means such as pornography or fantasy thoughts.

Emerging Tech

Google Sheets can now turn your boring spreadsheets into mini-apps

I spend enough time inside spreadsheets to know how quickly they can get out of hand. What starts as a neat table can eventually turn into hundreds of rows, endless columns, and a whole lot of scrolling to find the one thing you actually need. Google thinks Gemini can make that experience a lot less painful.

The company is introducing Sheets canvas, a new Gemini-powered feature that can take the data sitting inside a Google Sheets spreadsheet and turn it into something closer to a custom mini-app. Instead of manually building charts, formatting cells, or figuring out complicated formulas, you can tell Gemini what you want to create. For example, you could ask it to turn a spreadsheet full of assignments into a visual study tracker. Gemini will then use the information already sitting in your sheet to build an interactive interface around it.

Emerging Tech

Heart X1 soars for the first time as the world’s largest electric aircraft, and the flight cost just $5 in electricity

Aircraft, Airplane, Transportation

Electric cars have become a pretty normal sight on the road, but replacing jet fuel with batteries gets considerably more complicated when you’re trying to lift thousands of pounds into the sky. Heart Aerospace has just shown that it can be done at a surprisingly large scale.

The company’s X1 demonstrator has completed its maiden flight, becoming what Heart says is the largest battery-electric aircraft ever flown. The X1 has a 106-foot wingspan, stretches 76 feet from nose to tail, and weighs more than 25,000 pounds at takeoff. The piloted flight took place on August 12 at Plattsburgh International Airport in New York and lasted 27 minutes. During that time, the X1 climbed to 1,100 feet above ground level, while its battery-powered propulsion system delivered more than one megawatt of power.