The Various Job Requirements Required For You To Become An Astronaut, And How Tough It Is To Get Into This Incredibly Demanding Role.

As far as Career ideas go, thinking about becoming an astronaut is perhaps one of the hardest, most selective Careers to get into in the world. Competition is very fierce, so if you are not 110% dedicated to doing this, you may as well try thinking of other New careers you can go into. Trying to become an astronaut is very serious bu-siness, and due to the exceptionally limited number of places available, you really do have to be the best of the best in order to be considered. Here we are going to see what is needed to become an astronaut.

Straight off, one of the beneficial things that will be in your favour when submitting an application to become an astronaut is being an American citizen. NASA is the only possible way to become an astronaut at the current time, with most countries either placing their space programs on hold (Russia) or doing them rather secretively (China). Now, you don’t have to be an American in order to stand a chance - NASA do receive candidates from space agencies from other countries. Back in the 1990s, Helen Sharman went into orbit on Russia’s Mir space station, and was only British national to have done so at that time. So, you do still have a chance, though it’s an incredibly remote one. Even if you are American, you are still up against pretty daunting odds - usually approximately 3000 people apply to NASA when they open the applications every other year, and this has to be narrowed down to 25 people.

In order to be one of those successful 25, you need an incredibly high degree of fitness, academically gifted, and, if you want to pilot the space shuttle, you need to have acquired a decent sum of airtime flying jets - in excess of 1000. Becoming a pilot for NASA is even tougher than becoming an astronaut, as the requirements are so harsh.

For your education, you must be educated to degree level, and you need a degree in either engineering, biological or physical science, or mathematics. The great thing about this is, even you can’t make it as an astronaut, each of these degrees still leaves a lot of New careers open to you. You may need to look at other Career ideas before even becoming an astronaut - not only do you need to get a degree, you need 3 years of professional work experience. It also is advantageous if you really shine on your degree results and score highly - just making it through with a pass won’t make you look good, probability is there will be hundreds if not thousands of other applicants with better grades than just a pass. You really must give it your best shot!

Even if you become an astronaut, probable space time is varied and generally there aren’t loads of openings to get into space. Of course, if you do have the opportunity to go, you are experiencing something very few individuals ever have experienced, and you’ll be in one of the most technologically advanced Careers in existence.