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.
Always in these kind of scenarios, everyone always ignores the first primary step
Have wealthy parents or wealthy enough parents who can raise you from birth with a decent amount of care and upbringing in a quiet peaceful home full of nurturing, love, education and emotional support. This includes a basic or better than most nutrition from the time of birth to adulthood.
If you don’t have a good place to start … good luck trying to get anywhere above the level of a janitor working for a space agency.
Not true, really, presuming we’re talking about “working for a space agency” versus “becoming an astronaut”. There are at least 100x more opportunities if you’re willing to sit in a desk and review regulations for a living – but at a space agency.
Really, the minimum barrier is being good enough to get into a STEM focused undergrad program, and qualifying for student loans. Assuming you make it through and are smart enough, grad school is typically wholly funded by the universities (or their funding agencies). Which means the barrier of requiring wealth was already passed.
Source: I made it to grad school and I am from a farming family that went bankrupt when I was a teenager.
Wealth will always be a barrier for a child to grow up in a decent home environment. A minimum amount of wealth is required from the parents in order to feed the child proper nutrition for the first ten years of their lives. If they don’t have that good early start, it won’t matter how smart they are, the individual won’t progress very far and definitely not to their full potential.
I’m Indigenous in Canada and I basically grew up poor, my parents were hunters and trappers that were born and raised in the wilderness. I honestly believe that nutrition at an early age is basically what saved me. We were never wealthy so we could never afford store bought food but my parents were skilled hunters and trappers so we had more than enough wild meat all the time. I grew up eating moose, goose, caribou, beaver, a variety of fish and smaller animals. Mom also gave us a steady diet of oatmeal every single morning when we were kids. We seldom had much sugar or processed foods because we couldn’t afford it.
I did pretty good in school and I might have even been able to move up to post secondary but we could never afford it. I had the grades but not the wealth or mobility.
I compare my life to those I grew up with. A few of my cousins were like me and they were bright people but the majority of everyone else didn’t have parents like mine and they suffered through school and didn’t gain much of an education. They didn’t have the same upbringing or parents as mine and they didn’t do as well … even though we all lived in the same circumstances.
So like I said … generational wealth will always be the first barrier that an individual has to break in order to make it in this world.
There is a lot of freedom and opportunity in the US and Canada (where I’m from) but as the saying goes … “It’s a free country … as long as you can afford it”
Unfortunately, wealth determines your place in the military as well. If you come from a well to do family, chances are you will be able, capable and have the connections and ability to rank up and even find a good position in the organization and have lots of opportunities.
Otherwise, if you come from nothing, you’ll start off as canon fodder and maybe, just maybe, you might be able to afford a house some day.
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.
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.)
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. :)
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.
Always in these kind of scenarios, everyone always ignores the first primary step
Have wealthy parents or wealthy enough parents who can raise you from birth with a decent amount of care and upbringing in a quiet peaceful home full of nurturing, love, education and emotional support. This includes a basic or better than most nutrition from the time of birth to adulthood.
If you don’t have a good place to start … good luck trying to get anywhere above the level of a janitor working for a space agency.
Not true, really, presuming we’re talking about “working for a space agency” versus “becoming an astronaut”. There are at least 100x more opportunities if you’re willing to sit in a desk and review regulations for a living – but at a space agency.
Really, the minimum barrier is being good enough to get into a STEM focused undergrad program, and qualifying for student loans. Assuming you make it through and are smart enough, grad school is typically wholly funded by the universities (or their funding agencies). Which means the barrier of requiring wealth was already passed.
Source: I made it to grad school and I am from a farming family that went bankrupt when I was a teenager.
Wealth will always be a barrier for a child to grow up in a decent home environment. A minimum amount of wealth is required from the parents in order to feed the child proper nutrition for the first ten years of their lives. If they don’t have that good early start, it won’t matter how smart they are, the individual won’t progress very far and definitely not to their full potential.
I’m Indigenous in Canada and I basically grew up poor, my parents were hunters and trappers that were born and raised in the wilderness. I honestly believe that nutrition at an early age is basically what saved me. We were never wealthy so we could never afford store bought food but my parents were skilled hunters and trappers so we had more than enough wild meat all the time. I grew up eating moose, goose, caribou, beaver, a variety of fish and smaller animals. Mom also gave us a steady diet of oatmeal every single morning when we were kids. We seldom had much sugar or processed foods because we couldn’t afford it.
I did pretty good in school and I might have even been able to move up to post secondary but we could never afford it. I had the grades but not the wealth or mobility.
I compare my life to those I grew up with. A few of my cousins were like me and they were bright people but the majority of everyone else didn’t have parents like mine and they suffered through school and didn’t gain much of an education. They didn’t have the same upbringing or parents as mine and they didn’t do as well … even though we all lived in the same circumstances.
So like I said … generational wealth will always be the first barrier that an individual has to break in order to make it in this world.
There is a lot of freedom and opportunity in the US and Canada (where I’m from) but as the saying goes … “It’s a free country … as long as you can afford it”
Unless you join the military.
Unfortunately, wealth determines your place in the military as well. If you come from a well to do family, chances are you will be able, capable and have the connections and ability to rank up and even find a good position in the organization and have lots of opportunities.
Otherwise, if you come from nothing, you’ll start off as canon fodder and maybe, just maybe, you might be able to afford a house some day.
Interesting. Do you know why they would prefer a medical degree to say an engineering degree?
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.
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.)
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 :>