Experience, Skills, and Personality Traits
According to NASA, astronaut candidates must have “at least three years of related, progressively responsible, professional experience or at least 1,000 hours of pilot in-command time in jet aircraft.”
Astronauts must be highly trained, skilled professionals with a tremendous desire to learn about outer space and to participate in the highly dangerous exploration of it. They must have a deep curiosity with extremely fine and quick reactions. Astronauts may have to react in emergency conditions that may never before have been experienced, and to do so they must be able to remain calm and to think quickly and logically. As individuals they must be able to respond intelligently to strange and different conditions and circumstances.
Related Professions
- Aeronautical and Aerospace Technicians
- Aerospace Engineers
- Aerospace Medicine Physicians
- Aircraft Mechanics
- Astrobiologists
- Astrogeologists
- Astronomers
- Astrophysicists
- Avionics Engineers
- Avionics Technicians
- Biologists
- Build Reliability Engineers
- Chemical Engineers
- Chemists
- Computer Programmers
- Drone Engineers
- Drone Manufacturing Workers
- Drone Pilots
- Drone Repair Technicians
- Electrical Engineering Technologists
- Electrical Engineers
- Electronics Engineering Technicians
- Electronics Engineers
- Engineers
- Flight Instructors
- Geographic Information Systems Specialists
- Hypersonics Engineers
- Hypersonics Technicians
- Industrial Engineers
- Laboratory Testing Technicians
- Manufacturing Engineering Technologists
- Manufacturing Engineers
- Materials Engineers
- Mechanical Engineers
- Molecular and Cellular Biologists
- Non-Destructive Testing Specialists
- Physicists
- Pilots
- Reusable Spacecraft System Designers and Engineers
- Robotics Engineers
- Robotics Technicians
- Space Habitat Designers
- Space Lawyers
- Space Meteorologist
- Space Pilots
- Space Port Managers
- Space Systems Operators
- Space Tourism Managers
- Spacecraft Test Technicians