Looking for a career with some serious upward mobility? NASA is hiring astronauts for the agency’s Artemis program, which will send humans back to the moon in 2024 and establish sustainable lunar exploration by 2028 in preparation for sending the first humans to Mars in the mid-2030s.
NASA is accepting applications from March 2 to 31 for the next class of “Artemis Generation astronauts,” according to a news release from the space agency.
Since the 1960s, NASA has chosen 350 people to train as astronaut candidates, 25 of whom have called Ohio home, making our state the fourth-largest producer of U.S. astronauts, according to Ohio.org. Astronauts from Ohio include Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, John Glenn, the first man to orbit Earth, and Cleveland native Jim Lovell, the first astronaut to make four space flights.
There are 48 astronauts in NASA’s active corps, and they will need more crew members for multiple destinations as part of the Artemis missions and beyond, the release states.
“We’re celebrating our 20th year of continuous presence aboard the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit this year, and we’re on the verge of sending the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “For the handful of highly talented women and men we will hire to join our diverse astronaut corps, it’s an incredible time in human spaceflight to be an astronaut. We’re asking all eligible Americans if they have what it to takes to apply beginning March 2.”
Basic requirements to become a NASA astronaut include:
- U.S. citizenship
- Two years of related, progressively responsible professional experience, or at least 1,000 hours of pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft
- Candidates must pass the NASA long-duration spaceflight physical
Candidates must also have either:
- A master’s degree in a STEM field, including engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science, or mathematics
- Two years (36 semester hours or 54 quarter hours) of work toward a Ph.D. program in a related science, technology, engineering or math field
- A completed doctor of medicine or doctor of osteopathic medicine degree
- Or completion (or current enrollment with completion by June 2021) of a nationally recognized test pilot school program
Applicants can apply to be an astronaut here.
First-time applications will be required to take an online assessment that will take up to two hours to complete.
After being selected as a candidate and completing training, new astronauts could launch on American rockets and spacecraft to live and work aboard the International Space Station, where they will take part in experiments and prepare the U.S. for further exploration of the solar system.
NASA expects to select the next class of astronaut candidates in mid-2021 to begin training.
For more information and details on the requirements to become a candidate, click here.
NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, and the Plum Brook Research Center nearby in Sandusky, are playing pivotal roles in the Artemis program.
NASA Glenn researches things like solar electric propulsion, which will be key to a small station that will circle around the moon known as "Gateway," to nuclear power on the surface of the moon.
RELATED: NASA Glenn playing pivotal role in USA's lunar return, including station orbiting the moon
Last November, the Orion spacecraft, the exploration vehicle that will land the first woman and the next man on the moon in 2024, was delivered to Plum Brook Station for environmental testing.
RELATED: The Orion spacecraft makes its way to Plum Brook Station in Sandusky
