The National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA will soon end accepting applications for aspiring Moon to Mars explorers for their first-time astronaut program in the agency. After tomorrow, Mar. 31 at 11:59 p.m. EDT, no applications for the program will be accepted. So if you are one of the future astronauts that want to tour in deep space, you only have a day to process your application.
NASA Astronaut Application ends tomorrow; You might miss a chance of a lifetime
#BeAnAstronaut program was launched on the first week of the month and is now ending tomorrow. NASA expects to release the final set of the future astronauts on mid- 2021. All selected applicants of the program will be then transferred to begin training as the next class of Artemis Generation astronauts.
Since a lot are now being discovered in deep space including on Moon and Mars, NASA now aims to have more numbers of space astronauts that will help them uncover other important details about space.
"America is closer than any other time in history since the Apollo program to returning astronauts to the Moon. 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," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
How to apply for NASA's #BeAnAstronaut program?
To get on the platform, however, is no easy task. Here are the requirements based on the press release of the agency.
First, you need to be a US citizen and finished a master's degree in a STEM field, including engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science, or mathematics, from an accredited institution. If you do not have these specifications, there are other things to reconsider.
For the initial assessment, all applicants are required to take an online test that can last for two hours.
The complete list of requirements can be found here.
What will happen once accepted?
Once you got accepted on being NASA's new astronaut, Tech Times recently reported that you would get an annual salary of $104,000 to $161,000. Again, it is not easy. Space.com said that of over 18,000 applicants that applied three years ago, only 12 people reached the cut.
"Becoming an astronaut is no easy task because being an astronaut is no easy task," said Steve Koerner, NASA's director of flight operations and chair of the Astronaut Selection Board at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "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."
