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Do you dream of leaving the planet?
NASA is looking for its next group of astronauts and you have until April 2 to make your own proposal.
“Typically, it’s a very popular application,” said April Jordan, NASA’s director of astronaut selection.
The chances of you being chosen are slim. The last time NASA launched a call for applications, in 2020, more than 12,000 people applied.
It took the agency a year and a half to review the applications. NASA selected only 10 of the applicants, or 0.083 percent. That makes Harvard’s 3.5 percent acceptance rate among high school applicants seem plentiful.
“So when I say ‘popular,’” Jordan said, “that’s probably an understatement.”
Jordan is on a press tour to spread the message that “the right thing to do” to be an astronaut in 2024 is not the same as in the 1960s, when astronauts were all white men, almost all military.
Accompanying her on that tour, which included a stop at The New York Times, was Victor Glover, a nine-year veteran of the astronaut corps who offered insight into how she made it through the rigorous selection process.
To become a NASA astronaut today, you must be a US citizen and pass the astronaut physical exam.
NASA sets a pretty high bar for education: a master’s degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, followed by at least three years of related professional experience.
Beyond that, the agency tries to keep an open mind. (There is no age limit, for example, or 20/20 vision requirement.)
“We want the pool of astronaut candidates we select to reflect the nation they represent,” Ms. Jordan said.
Take, for example, Mr. Glover.
In some ways, it fits the historical archetype. Before NASA, he was a Navy aviator and trained as a test pilot.
It is also breaking historical barriers.
In 2020, he became the first Black astronaut to serve as a crew member on the International Space Station after 20 years of living there. In 2025, he will become the first black astronaut to fly around the moon for the Artemis II mission.
To stand out in NASA’s competitive application process, Glover knew he would need more than just a solid resume. He was especially determined to get a good joke.
The night before one of Mr. Glover’s interviews at NASA for the class of 2013, he was asked to write an essay. The title: “Girls like astronauts.”
“They sit in this room all day listening to all these dry answers,” he recalled thinking. “I’m going to try to make them laugh.”
The essay went from punchline to poignant, reflecting on the ways she has tried to inspire her four daughters. She also decided to be vulnerable during the interview, sharing a “cheeky” moment when she nearly fell into the water during an aerial demonstration.
“You have to be able to share that information with the interview panel when you arrive, because inevitably you’re going to fail at something,” Ms. Jordan said. “And so there’s a humility you have to bring even if you’ve accomplished great things.”
As part of the application process, Mr. Glover wrote a comic limerick who concluded: “All this makes me dizzy, because I gave up so much blood and urine.”
Mr. Glover set out to go to outer space as a child, when he saw his classmates moved to tears by the Challenger disaster.
His space ambition deepened years later when he heard a speech by Pam Melroy, former space shuttle commander. Melroy, now deputy administrator of NASA, told how her crew had rushed to repair a damaged solar panel on the International Space Station.
“I thought, ‘Wow, she just talked about something really technical, really logistically challenging,'” Glover said. “But the excitement was about the people.”
He realized then that just as astronauts need technical skill, they also need something that is harder to teach: social skills.
“You’re going to live in this tin can with someone for six months,” he said of his time on the space station. “We’re almost choosing family members.”
Glover proudly points out the diversity of backgrounds among today’s astronauts. “If you compare our office to the demographics of the country, we match the country very well,” he said.
In fact, diversity within NASA exceeds that of the private sector in some respects. The percentage of black astronauts is higher than the percentage of black people in the science and technology workforce overall, Glover said.
That’s a direct result of NASA’s sustained efforts over a couple of decades to recruit astronauts beyond the traditional archetype, he said.
“Our office looks the way it does because of this intentionality and thinking about our biases and how they can affect who we hire,” he said. “I think it’s a big win.”
But Glover acknowledged that diversity as a hiring goal was becoming increasingly difficult.
Critics include Elon Musk, the billionaire who runs SpaceX, the rocket company that NASA relies on to transport cargo and astronauts (like Glover) to the International Space Station. NASA has also contracted SpaceX to take astronauts to the Moon.
“His perspective on some things is a little disturbing,” Glover said of Musk.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment from Musk.
Musk has repeatedly called for an end to programs that focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI. “DEI is just another word for racism,” he said. aware in January on X, the social network he owns.
Glover said he had just heard a controversial interview that former CNN anchor Don Lemon recently conducted with Musk. “My mom sent it to me and said, ‘Do you remember you went on his spaceship?’” he said. “I say, ‘Mom, he probably remembers it very vividly.’ He is a great intellect, but he probably doesn’t care.”
People ask him how he feels about becoming the first Black person to go on a lunar mission next year, when Artemis II will orbit the moon without landing.
“Actually, I’m sad,” Glover said. “It’s 2025 and I’m going to be first? Come on.”
It told the story of Ed Dwight, the only black pilot in the Air Force in the 1960s who met the restrictive requirements NASA then had for astronauts. But Mr. Dwight was never selected.
“Ed Dwight could have done this in the ’60s,” Glover said. “How much better would our country be if I really had the chance? Society was not prepared. Is not the. He was ready.”
While Glover has heard some of the pushback against DEI initiatives, he firmly believes that pursuing diversity is not about lowering standards and accepting less qualified candidates. “I think it should just be excellence,” he said. “As long as whiteness or masculinity is not equated with excellence, then we are fine. “We are speaking the same language.”
Many applicants are attracted by the potential glory of being the first astronauts to walk on Mars, an achievement NASA aspires to in the 2030s.
But Glover said they should also contemplate the sacrifices they and their families might have to make along the way.
“The trip to Mars lasts six to nine months,” he said. “You are going to be away from your acquaintances for more than a year, one to three years. Are you really ready for that?