Sony wins big by announcing they are going to damn the terrorists and release the movie anyway. They cash in on the enormous amount of free publicity and now every American wants to see it to snub the terrorists. They just need to convince the public there isn't a credible threat to movie theaters getting blown up.
Since you said you're interested in space most of the comments seems to be focused around getting into a classical engineering field but I'm going to go in a different direction. I joined the startup scene in San Francisco in 2009 and though it seems most of these companies discard resumes that don't have B.Sc or M.Sc with a major in CS, CE or EE I do know a number of people personally that have managed to become programmers without a related college degree (or even finishing high school in one instance). They don't start that way but they transfer in after doing good work at the company in another role.
So the master plan is: move to startup city and join a startup in a job you're qualified for. Study CS on the side and become friends with engineers and engineering managers at the startup. Kick ass at your existing job and start talking about wanting to be a programmer. Eventually someone will take a chance on you because startups are desperate for programmers/engineers. Once you have industry experience in the role people will be able to look passed your lack of official training. Eventually, after a few startup jobs like this, after you improve into a Real Software Developer (rather than a shitty startup dev) you can leverage that into a position at a space agency.
The main point here is exploiting the startup community's desperation for programmers to get you into the field without the matching degree.
It's a long term plan but you have a lot of learning to do along the way so you need it.
Slashdot Mirror
Sony wins big by announcing they are going to damn the terrorists and release the movie anyway. They cash in on the enormous amount of free publicity and now every American wants to see it to snub the terrorists. They just need to convince the public there isn't a credible threat to movie theaters getting blown up.
I swear I put some newlines in that block of text...
Since you said you're interested in space most of the comments seems to be focused around getting into a classical engineering field but I'm going to go in a different direction. I joined the startup scene in San Francisco in 2009 and though it seems most of these companies discard resumes that don't have B.Sc or M.Sc with a major in CS, CE or EE I do know a number of people personally that have managed to become programmers without a related college degree (or even finishing high school in one instance). They don't start that way but they transfer in after doing good work at the company in another role. So the master plan is: move to startup city and join a startup in a job you're qualified for. Study CS on the side and become friends with engineers and engineering managers at the startup. Kick ass at your existing job and start talking about wanting to be a programmer. Eventually someone will take a chance on you because startups are desperate for programmers/engineers. Once you have industry experience in the role people will be able to look passed your lack of official training. Eventually, after a few startup jobs like this, after you improve into a Real Software Developer (rather than a shitty startup dev) you can leverage that into a position at a space agency. The main point here is exploiting the startup community's desperation for programmers to get you into the field without the matching degree. It's a long term plan but you have a lot of learning to do along the way so you need it.