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Now's Your Chance To Apply As an Astronaut
From reader Leebert comes this notice: NASA will hold a conference this afternoon to explain the process the agency will use to select the next class of astronauts. According to the announcement, "NASA will recruit its next astronaut class through the federal government's USAJobs.gov website. The class of 2009 was the first astronaut class to graduate in a new era of space flight following the final mission of the space shuttle. A new fleet of human spacecraft is in development by commercial companies to deliver crews to the International Space Station. NASA also is developing spacecraft to send humans on missions of exploration far away from our planet." Says Leebert: "I plan to apply, because I want to be able to say: 'Not everybody can be an astronaut. I know, they sent me a rejection letter.'"
My brother, who is in medical school, and had no real qualifications, applied to Virgin Galactic's Astronat position a few months ago. Here's their responce:
Dear [name]
Thank you very much for your interest and application for the first
Virgin Galactic Pilot-Astronaut positions.
Despite the very demanding qualifications, we had over 500
applications, the vast majority from very well qualified and experienced
test pilots. As you can imagine, filtering down such a large pool of
talent and having to leave out many highly respected test pilots, as
well as a few flown astronauts, was an extremely difficult task.
We were able to invite just eight of this group forward to the next
stage of the process and I regret to inform you that we were unable to
include you. We appreciate that this may be a major disappointment but
it is no exaggeration to say that we received a great deal of interest
from some of the world’s very best and highest qualified pilots.
Thank you for your application and interest in Virgin Galactic and we
wish you the very best in your future career.
With regards,
Virgin Galactic Careers
http://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/302967000
giggity