I’m surprised I’ve come this far without writing a post about how to become an astronaut. As I’ve mentioned several times over the course of this blog, I have no interest in becoming an astronaut myself, but I have read a lot about the process. Since we’re in America, I’ll be pulling my information mostly from NASA, though I suspect most space programs have similar requirements.

On its website, NASA only lists a few requirements. There are slight requirement differences between “Commander and Pilot” astronauts and “Mission Specialist” astronauts, but the basics are the same: candidates must (1) have a bachelor’s degree in engineering, biological science, physical science, or mathematics and (2) be able to pass a physical (including standards for vision, blood pressure, and height*). So, if you’re shorter than 4’10.5” or taller than 6’4”, if you’re colorblind, or if you have some type of serious medical condition, you’re out of luck. To be a commander/pilot you need to have had 1,000 hours in command of a jet, and to be a mission specialist you need at least 3 years of “related, progressively responsible, professional experience” related to your degree, but all that’s a piece of cake, right? (Just a heads up, your master’s degree only counts as one year of experience.)

All kidding aside, even though these “basic” requirements are nothing to sneeze at, there are probably a lot of people in American who fit this criteria. I’m not going to try to make up a number, but I’m sure everyone reading this knows of some people who could theoretically apply. “Theoretically” is the key word here, because everyone who applies is smart, driven, and in shape both mentally and physically. (From some of the reading I’ve done, the physical training for astronauts is hard. Like get-dropped-in-the-middle-of-the-frozen-tundra-with-barely-any-supplies-and-survive hard. To say astronauts are “in shape” is an understatement.)

The 2013 NASA astronaut candidates

Take a look at the background info of the 8 astronaut candidates selected in 2013 (after a year-and-a-half search) from a pool of over 6,000 applicants and tell me you’re not intimidated. (Did I say intimidated? I meant impressed. But also intimidated.) Notice also how 6 of the 8 have a background in the Armed Forces. Service in the Armed Forces remains a common path to becoming an astronaut, though civilians are allowed to apply and often are accepted.

Here’s a screenshot of a (slightly outdated) timeline of the application from NASA’s website.

To finish the post off, here are some “insider tips” I found online—a worthwhile read, if you’re at all interested.

*The height requirement may be surprising to some, but there’s good reason for it. Chris Hadfield alludes to the reasoning in his autobiography: NASA astronauts used to go to space aboard space shuttles, but the space shuttle program ended in 2011. Currently, the only way for our astronauts to get to space is via the Russian Soyuz vessels, which are significantly smaller than space shuttles. Astronauts taller than the limit simply cannot fit safely in the Soyuz (and I presume anyone shorter is also unable to fit properly in the harness).

Well, probably not you, the person reading this—unless you know how to code—but the point is that NASA is increasingly asking for help from (ordinary) people outside of its organization. I have posted previously about the commercialization of the space industry, and competitions such as the one NASA has just started are one aspect of this. Similar in motive to the X Prize Foundation (which includes the Google Lunar XPRIZE that some Penn State students are taking part in), NASA is relying on monetary incentive and competition as a way to produce results. In opening their contest to anyone, furthermore, NASA is increasing the brainpower contributing to this issue.

NASA is launching an Asteroid Data Hunting contest series that will take place over the next six months, with prizes totaling $35,000. In this case, they are looking for a better code to identify asteroids that might crash into Earth. (There are more specifics on what exactly they’re looking for in a code; feel free to do more research if you’re interested.) Come up with such an algorithm, and you will be rewarded.

This contest series is only the first of several to come in NASA “Asteroid Grand Challenge,” so expect more challenges (and prizes) to be made public soon.

A BBC article about NASA’s contest mentions a site called Zooniverse, which is a leading online platform for “citizen scientists.” Virtually anybody can go online and help out with different projects. I checked out the website, and it’s actually really cool. The projects are diverse, and range from sorting sunspots to analyzing cancer cells (which is what I did—give it a try!). The nice thing is that there’s not a minimum time commitment. You can go on and work through 5 minutes of data and be done, or you can be much more involved if you want. A member of Zooniverse, Robert Simpson, made some pretty good points about this topic. He explains, “Computers don’t have curiosity. People often find things in the data that computers can’t.” Furthermore, because “We are creating these huge data sets but we don’t have enough scientists to analyse them,” creating forums and competitions for everyday citizens who are passionate about science is beneficial to everyone.

Looking back on the more extreme competitions (rather than an online platform like Zooniverse), what are your thoughts? Are they worthwhile for the companies sponsoring them? How about for the participants? (Keep in mind the input to output ratio. The amount of money the winning team of the Lunar XPRIZE will spend, for example, will definitely be more than the amount of money they win—and that’s only looking at the winning team.)

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In other news, the three members of Expedition 37/38 safely landed in Kazakhstan on March 10^th after spending six months aboard the International Space Station. Welcome home!

.@nasahqphoto pics of last night's #Soyuz return from #ISS are posted and available at: http://t.co/ayloIBxv7S pic.twitter.com/qyH9FkUbfs

— NASA (@NASA) March 11, 2014

The conspiracy theories we looked at in class last week got me thinking about extraterrestrial life. I’m going to try to stay away from the term “aliens” because I think the connotation is of a green, human-like creature, which is misleading because life only requires one cell.

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Let’s go over some numbers, courtesy of Wikipedia. The only life forms we know of exist on planet Earth. Earth is one of 8 planets in the solar system (sorry, Pluto!).  Our solar system is part of a galaxy called the Milky Way

Milky Way, the candy bar

(which is also the name of a delicious candy bar). The Milky Way contains hundreds of billions of planets. (Hundreds of billions, can you even comprehend how many that is? No, you can’t, but nice try.) There are probably more than 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe. I could go on, but I think you get the point.

The Milky Way, our galaxy

Considering the enormity of our universe, it seems statistically improbable—and really arrogant—that our little earth is the only planet that supports life.  (Check out this article for some very basic statistics.) The more I think about it, the more positive I am that extraterrestrial life does exist.

I’m a little less sure about the existence of intelligent life. I’m an optimist, though, so yeah, I think there is intelligent life out there.(One of my problems with grasping this idea is the definition of intelligent life. We humans are the ones defining intelligent life, but what if there are other life forms out there that are “intelligent” in ways other than what we can comprehend? Would we ever be able to appreciate such life? And would it even be considered “life”? Tough questions…)

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That being said, there is a big difference between other life existing (or having existed at some point in time) and us being able to discover this life. For example, even though we know billions and billions of planets exist, we have only confirmed the existence of around 1,700 planets outside the Solar System using the Kepler telescope. I have no idea what the requirements for confirming a planet are, so I’m just going to leave it to the smart people at NASA.

Of these new planets, four are “less than 2.5 times the size of Earth and orbit in their sun’s habitable zone, defined as the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet may be suitable for life-giving liquid water.” Life, as we define it, requires water, so in theory a planet supporting life would have to fall within a certain distance of the star (sun) it orbits.

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Though so far we haven’t had any luck, what are your thoughts on the matter? Does extraterrestrial life exist? How about intelligent life? And, more importantly, will we ever find this life?