I want to be an astronaut

confidential
Wed, 03 Aug 2005 17:37:34 +0000

My research mentor was telling me the other day that he was friends with the astronaut Stephen Robinson(the guy whose in space right now repairing the tile). He studied mech engineering I believe, and did research in fluid dynamics and computational physics.

These days they don’t exclusively take Airforce pilots, so I think some type of specialization would be good(so that you can do lab tests etc in space).

I don’t think university reputation matters much but I could be wrong. You just have to be successful through the rigorous training etc. Also remember, you’ll probably not go up to space until you are in your 30s and things can change between now and then. They might be looking for different specs etc in people then, so have a good backup plan.

The space crew on Discovery(click them for individual biographies): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-114