[conspire] Alternative to a programmer job: Up, up, and away!

[Rick Moen]

Everything old is new again:  Turns out, NASA needs to hire a new batch
of astronauts, and has put out a call for applications, your hat in the
ring being welcome starting March 2nd at http://www.usajobs.gov/ .


Qualifications:

o  United States citizenship
o  a master’s degree in a STEM field from an accredited institution

The requirement for the master’s degree can be alternatively met by:

o  two years (36 semester hours or 54 quarter hours) of work toward a
   Ph.D. program in a related science, technology, engineering, or math
   field, or
o  a completed doctor of medicine or doctor of osteopathic medicine
   degree, or 
o  completion (or current enrollment that will result in completion by
   June 2021) of a nationally recognized test pilot school program.

Applicants must also have

o  at least two years of related, progressively responsible professional
   experience, or 
o  at least 1,000 hours of pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft, and
o  must pass the NASA long-duration spaceflight physical.


Flashback:  Circa 1960, NASA asked my father, Arthur Moen, to please
enter the astronaut program because, in addition to perfectly meeting
their profile (distinguished WWII combat pilot, immigrant citizen,
married with two kids, i.e., the required photogenic family), he also
had a unique skill they really valued at the time:  He was a world
expert at celestial navigation.

Dad turned down NASA's invitation, because he had a wife and two kids
and wanted to remain in a _safe_ profession for his family's benefit,
that of commercial airline pilot flying for Pan American World Airways.


'Man plans and God laughs.'  -- Yiddish proverb.  (Der mentsh trakht un
Got lakht,  .דער מענטש טראַכט און גאָט לאַכט)
Or, as the late Robert Howard Schnacke might have phrased it in Hochdeutsch:
'Der Mensch denkt und Gott lenkt.'