This could be you!
Who hasn’t dreamed of becoming an astronaut? Well, now you can. The NASA has an open position for an “Astronaut Candidate” for the International Space Station in Houston, TX. The requirements are pretty interesting.
The training will take two to three years and will require a lot of traveling, probably mostly to Russia, since they will be using Soyuz to travel to and from the ISS. The required education is fairly broad, and more interestingly, the list of degrees that are not applicable is fairly short (technology, psychology, nursing(!), etc…). It looks like a CS degree is good enough, and you can make up for the lack of flying experience with an MS or better, a PhD.
“Correctable” 20/20 eyesight is required, which means that contact lenses and Lasik are accepted (I wonder how hard it is to put contact lenses on in zero gravity…). The ad also takes the time to explain each jargon occurrence: “Extravehicular Activities (space walks)”, “the extravehicular activity mobility unit (space suit)”.
Although the ad will only be open for the next couple of months, the selection process takes a while since the selection will be announced in the spring of 2013.
I was fortunate to be able to experience a Zero-G flight a few years ago, I can’t say I’m not tempted to apply 🙂