For the astronaut program, the main thing is whether one has a sterling military record as a military pilot(fighters usually) and can pass the rigorous physical and mental exam above and beyond that required for fighter pilots.
While going to the Air Force and Naval Academies can help, it only helps if one is able to qualify as a fighter pilot and excel above and beyond his/her peers.
For instance, one friend who attended USAFA won’t be qualified for this because he opted* to fly the A-10, a ground attack aircraft as ground attack pilots aren’t favored by NASA or the top Air Force brass considering they’ve been trying to retire and mothball the A-10 fleet for 20 years.
He's dreamed of flying it since we were HS freshmen.
In my old age–I’ve discovered Ella Fitzgerald. I know–clearly music for old farts. Anyway–heard her sing this song (by Ira Gershwin) while listening on my power walk this morning. This isn’t word for word–but it made me think of this thread.
“The man who only lives for money
Lives a life that isn’t always sunny
The man who looks for fame–no guarantee that time won’t erase his name
Fall in love and you won’t regret it. That’s the best work of all if you can get it.”
@PurpleTitan
“@epiphany, I think that peer pressure is a far bigger influence than parental pressure.
Most teenagers don’t listen to their parents. In fact, most rebel.
An outside adult like you would have the second-most influence after peers.”
Yes and No to that. Peers often have the most POSITIVE influence on the teenager, but a NEGATIVE parental influence – esp. in some cultures – can be as or more powerful than peers, which is what I have encountered over the last 10 years. Peers can be validating – or devaluing – the self-concept in spades, but I have seen students resist that if at least the parents are behind them. It’s destructive if both peers and parents are in league. Then it’s essential to go to someone outside, like me. I don’t relish being in the position — as it has a few times resulted in significant drama and high-risk operations, so to speak.; however, I will do so if a student approaches me and the need is obviously genuine.
(Also addressing cobrat on this.)
Edited to add:
This last admissions cycle I did encounter a horrendous whole-school peer pressure situation which was devastating to the student. However, student could not talk to parents about this because the parents backed the peers! So, while in DEGREE and immediacy the peer pressure was worse, in reality (efficacious reality) the lack of sympathy from the parents resulted in emotional paralysis by student until I was in a position to validate the student’s inner inclinations. (She approached me.) I suspect it will continue to be tough for her until she’s gainfully employed somewhere after college.
P.S. everybody. I’m a Mom with grown teenagers. I know about peer pressure. No need for “instruction.”
@cobrat Not all astronauts are fighter pilots, especially these days with all the scientists coming on board. Mission specialists don’t need to be pilots, just pilots and commanders do.
As for taking a proven route to become an astronaut - @Hunt - I thought about doing that, but I didn’t think that going to a service academy just because they produced the most astronauts was a very noble reason to do so. From what I can see (search the bios of the astronauts, like here: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/astrobio.html), they are picked from a broad range of backgrounds and educations.
“If you wanted to be an astronaut, would you take the route that produced the largest number of astronauts, a route that produced at least one astronaut, or a route that (so far) produced no astronauts?”
The first, of course. But i’d also not assume everyone else wants to be an astronaut or think that not-astronaut-aspirants really do aspire to it. I’d be bright enough to assume that “but you get to see outer space; who wouldn’t want that” isn’t conpelling to most people.
College degrees are mostly treated as check boxes in the application process for becoming an astronaut.
I think it’s rather fascinating to see people from wildly different backgrounds, working together as a team, all getting the job done. Even the mission specialists have been known to come from a wide range of schools.
Some people want a meritocracy in this country. We talk about equal opportunity. If you work hard you can achieve your goals. This is ideal. This is the myth we are told in America.
Who your parents are, if you are a legacy, if you have the right colored skin, if you go to the correct schools, if you mature at the right age, have certain opportunites growing up, luck, etc affects your outcomes.
This cuts into the meritocracy myth. There is some truth to the myth but there are some falsehoods.
This is one reason sports are appealing. Sports aren’t perfect either but sports are closer to a meritocracy than most other fields.
We don’t believe in competition in this country. We believe in winning. Society is set up to keep the winners winning.
If you are 18 years old and you get into Harvard or Princeton you are starting a 100 yard race on the 50 yard line. Isn’t that a little early to be judging? I guess we are always judging as a society.
I don’t want my kids competing. My kids don’t need to start on the 50 yard line. Starting on the the 25 yard line will suffice.
Last night, I went to see the five member acapella group Pentatonix in concert. They are wildly popular and are recent Grammy winners. Three of them are from my home town in Texas and were just beginning their college educations when they decided to drop out of school in order to try out for the acapella contest show called The Sing Off. One of their members, Kevin Olusola, had literally just graduated from Yale and flew to LA a week after getting his diploma to meet the other 4 members of the group (at their invitation) and audition for the show. This guy had gone to Andover Prep, went on to Yale and majored in Asian studies and music, all while completing his pre-med requirements. I believe his plans were to continue his Asian studies at UC Berkeley and then go on to med school.
I wonder what I, as his parent, would have said when he told me he was going to abandon all those plans in order to be a beatboxer for a group of singers he had never even met before. After years of supporting him through a very elite education, I think I would have completely and totally flipped out.
Apparently it has worked well for him. The group had the top selling Christmas album since 1962 this year, they have more youtube subscribers than Beyonce, their concerts are always sold out here in the US as well as abroad, and Kevin has recently put out his own “celloboxing” album, which is the number one classical crossover album at present.
Brings to mind how people from such diverse educational backgrounds can come together and produce something so impressive. BTW, the concert was great. I had wondered if they would actually be able to sound as good in person as they do on their albums, and the answer to that was YES. Really, really talented group of singers.
@dstark…you don’t want your kids competing? competition is the way the world works, from protozoa all the way up to humans and every living thing in between. Plants compete for sunlight and soil for goodness sake. Hmans cooperate (sometimes), but they also must compete, without competition there is no progress.
See, I wouldn’t even go that far… They may be starting on the 50 yard line for the race into the Finance/Wall Street, but it can also work in reverse too… that’s the part some people don’t seem to understand. Put that Harvard physics grad up against a U of Arizona physics grad (with special, relevant research) in an optical sciences race and the U of A grad would likely start out at the 50.
People like straightforward, easy answers to everything, and that’s why we have rankings lists that are predicated on the idea that there is only one “best”. While these rankings do make things less confusing, they are also misleading as they do not consider any personal interests/goals.
“.you don’t want your kids competing? competition is the way the world works, from protozoa all the way up to humans and every living thing in between. Plants compete for sunlight and soil for goodness sake. Hmans cooperate (sometimes), but they also must compete, without competition there is no progress.”
I want my kids competing with themselves, not with others. Others’ yardsticks are meaningless. They have to find and trust their own yardsticks for success and happiness.
Anyway, it’s not a zero-sum world. Person A doesn’t have to succeed at the expense of Person B. Both Person A and Person B can succeed. Isn’t that great?
@nrdsb4 one of the things I do in my spare time is watch professional gaming. Not sports, but e-games (League of Legends mostly). These gamers tend to peak in their late teens/early 20s and make tons, and I mean TONS, of money once they make it big.
However, many of them put off or drop out of college- often very elite schools- to pursue this extremely competitive field. I really can’t imagine what their parents go through. Many of these guys and their parents are interviewed by various networks and there’s a recurrent theme: “We’ll give you x months to make it big or else you’re back at school.” Of course, they never interview the people that don’t make it, but still. It seems incredibly courageous to me to put that much stock into your kid… especially because they almost always know NOTHING about this field. I mean really, making a living through playing video games? Incomprehensible to many.
Competition does lead to progress but I want my kids to win. Others can compete.
Competition is fine and necessary … For others.
I am being a little flippant. My kids can compete.
Their starting line was not the same as the kids across the bay.
I worked for a trading company. We started getting some competition. A partner said, “The competition is great. Bring it on”.
The chairman said, “No. Competition is bad”. And competition was bad. We lost.
People might say competition is good on tv. That is pr bs. Do you think the cable companies are happy with what is going on?
Do you think the biotech companies are happy generics are now allowed? Amgen said they are happy with generic competition. I own a little stock in amgen. I have my doubts.
Gilead Sciences had a monopoly on a cure for hep c. Now the company doesn’t. Gilead had to drop the price of their drugs. Good for society. Bad for Gild.
On a micro level, people fight competition. People don’t want competition if they might lose.
At a macro level, competition is great.
Peter Thiel wrote a great article on monopolies. He wants the companies he invests in to be monopolies.
Our institutions are trying to keep their tribes winning.
@romanigypsyeyes, Yeah, that would be tough. At least in the example I gave, Kevin O has his Yale degree in hand. He could presumably go to grad school or med school in the future. The other kids dropping out before getting their degrees, that would be hard to take. Especially for something like video gaming. I never even knew such a thing existed on a professional level!
Yeah. There are literally high school kids making tends of thousands of dollars through streaming before they ever go pro. Many “retire” from the tournament scene by their early-mid 20s and them stream making hundreds of thousands of dollars. Making that kind of money while sitting in your bedroom is a hard thing to give up.
However, there are some extremely successful streamers that stay streaming rather than go pro because 1- they make more and 2- can continue to live wherever they’re living and go on with their daily lives. One of the most successful streamers in the world goes to UMich.
It’s really an interesting phenomenon that I’ve been watching unfold over the last few years. America is kind of late to the game- over in some Asian countries (mainly Korea and China) e-gamers are the equivalent of “traditional” sports stars over here. E-sports is getting there (no matter how many want to poo-poo it as I’ve seen on various CC threads).
Romani, us parents don’t have that much control and the older are kids get, the less control we have. And at some point most of us don’t want control. We just want to watch our kids’ ride.
Controlling can be tiring.
I don’t care what my kids do as long as they are independent and don’t hurt anybody including themselves. My kids are going to do what they want anyway.
competition is ALWAYS good. Of course nobody WANTS it. Competition means you have to outwork, outsmart the competitor. It forces you to innovate, get leaner, stronger, faster, more nimble. Just like in sports…can a QB afford to gain 40 pounds an not work out? NO! why? competition. And to those who say they don’t want competing with others, I say good luck. I know of no industry where there doesn’t exist competition. Yes, there are monopolies, and plenty of industries in the US work congress to eliminate competition, but there always exists a way to exert pressure on a monopoly (think UPS and US post office, or itunes and record industry) but it is ALL around you! just look! Governments compete for resources, companies compete for customers, students compete for jobs, and on and on. Yes there are ways for MANY to “win”, but not all! that is why there is inequality in the world. The very nature of economics is the basis of LIFE, the competition for FIXED and finite resources here on earth…food, water, timber, energy, etc. We all like to think that sounds selfish, and it is, but is they way the world works. In theory, if you had infinite resources at no cost to the consumer of those resources, you would have nirvana and an end to human misery and war. Maybe our next generation of brilliant minds will discover ways to solve these problems.
@Pizzagirl, we are talking 2 different things…I think you are trying to say how you measure success varies, and I agee 100%, that should be self-defined. But everyone must still compete for what they want in life, no way around it.
