John Yaniec helps to stabilize Dorothy M. (Dottie) Metcalf-Lindenburger, educator mission specialist astronaut candidate, during one of a series of reduced gravity sessions. Metcalf-Lindenburger was born in Colorado Springs, but considers Fort Collins her home. (Photo: NASA)
It’s time, nerds. Want to go to space? NASA is looking for a for the next astronaut class.
Astronaut Jack Fischer is from Louisville, Colo., home of Sierra Nevada Space Systems. He’s pictured here at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station after the successful splashdown of Orion in Dec. 2014. (Photo: Laura Keeney, The Denver Post)
If accepted, applicants will join an . Nine astronauts were born in Colorado — including Apollo XIII’s Jack Swigert, Mercury 7’s Scott Carpenter and current astronaut Jack Fischer — and many others attended school here, primarily at CU Boulder, which has (two of whom are currently faculty at the school) and many others who have been on the space station. and just took his .
NASA has selected more than 300 astronauts to date, and 47 remain in the active astronaut corps. Specialties range from medical doctors to scientists to engineers and more. A bachelor’s degree in certain fields of study is required, and there are several other requirements, as one might imagine. .
John “Jack” Swigert was part of the Apollo 13 mission that never made it to the moon. Swigert was born in Denver in 1931 and is buried in Wheat Ridge. (Photo: NASA)
The announcement comes as NASA has some big plans in the works, including the end of the U.S.’ reliance on Russia to transport our astronauts to space.
“With more human spacecraft in development in the United States today than at any other time in history, future astronauts will launch once again from the Space Coast of Florida on American-made commercial spacecraft, and carry out deep-space exploration missions that will advance a future human mission to Mars,” NASA said in a release.
Cece Bibby and astronaut Scott Carpenter paint
Aurora 7 on the Mercury Spacecraft at Cape Canaveral in 1962. Carpenter was from Boulder. (Photo: NASA)
This class of astronauts could fly aboard the International Space Station, Boeing’s , SpaceX’s Dragon and NASA’s , currently being built at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Littleton.
“This next group of American space explorers will inspire the Mars generation to reach for new heights, and help us realize the goal of putting boot prints on the Red Planet,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement.
The . After an internal vetting process that runs through the end of 2016, qualified applicants will go to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for interviews. The class will be announced in June 2017 and report to JSC for training in August 2017. NASA lists all the information here:
NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, a CSU grad, corrals the supply of fresh fruit that arrived at the International Space Station August 25 on the JAXA (Japanese Space Agency) Kounotori 5 H-II Transfer Vehicle. Visiting cargo ships often carry a small cache of fresh food for crew members aboard the International Space Station. (NASA)
