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Have you ever wondered how to become an astronaut? These 5 things should clear that up.

For everyone out there looking for a new job, NASA posted a job opening for their next batch of astronaut candidates.

It never occurred to me that this is the kind of job you could just apply for, but there it is. People don't just wake up as astronauts.

Thinking about busting out the resume?

Here are five things NASA's job description reveals about what it takes to be an astronaut.


1. They'll want to know pretty much everything about you.

Image by tigerlily713/Pixabay.

The position includes a background check, a health check, a financial check, and a drug check. And you have to be a U.S. citizen. Plus you have to have five, yes five, references.

That said, they've tried to make the process at least a little less intimidating.

"We try to make it just as laid back and informal as we can. Obviously, the person will bring a lot of stress and excitement," Duane Ross, manager of the Astronaut Selection Office, told Popular Science in a 2013 interview. "There are no trick questions or equations on a board — the interview is about them."

2. You've got to like traveling.

"Frequent travel may be required," says the job ad. Yeah, I bet.

And you'll need to get used to paperwork. The story goes that the crew of Apollo 11 had to fill out customs forms after returning from the moon!

You'll need to fill some out too, but that's more because you'll be visiting a lot of different nations, rather than any fears of illegal (literal) aliens. Astronauts may need to travel to Japan, Europe, Russia, or really any other space-fairing nation in order to train with their personnel and equipment.

You won't have to pay for it out of pocket, luckily. NASA's got you covered. They even reimbursed Buzz Aldrin after he submitted a travel voucher to the moon. The cost? $33. A lot cheaper than the quarter of a million dollars Virgin Galactic sells their space tickets for.

Plus, you've got to move to Texas.

3. You've got to fit in a space suit.

Image from Christopher Michel/Flickr.

Specifically, you have to be between 5’2” and 6’3” tall. And don’t have high blood pressure. It’s also OK to wear glasses (or get laser eye surgery), but you’ve got to be able to see what you’re doing.

You’ve got to be a good educational fit as well. They want at least a bachelor’s degree for this round of applications, and it’s got to be in science, math, or engineering.

4. Yes, you get dental.

Image from Barbaricino/Wikimedia Commons.

As a candidatem you’ll be making the equivalent of at least $33 an hour, plus benefits, including health and life insurance.

Funnily enough, it wasn’t always this way. The story goes that the Apollo 11 astronauts couldn’t afford the life insurance that something as dangerous as going to the moon would require. So instead, they filled out hundreds of signatures.

"If they did not return from the moon, their families could sell them," said Robert Pearlman, a space historian and collector in a 2012 article from NPR, “to not just fund their day-to-day lives, but also fund their kids' college education and other life needs.”

5. You might have to wait a while to get to space.

First of all, you’ve got to complete a two-year training program before you earn your space wings (side note: Space Wings is my Prog Rock Paul McCartney cover band).

But even then, blast off might take some time. There’s only so much space in the space station and though NASA technically employs 47 active astronauts right now, only two — Scott Kelly and Tim Kopra — are currently orbiting.

But there'll be plenty to do once you get there.

Though the Space Shuttle has been retired, there’s still plenty for NASA to do. There are plans for a new launch system, a mission to Europa — one of Jupiter’s moons — and the capture of a near-Earth asteroid.

Basically.

Capturing an asteroid sounds crazy, but it could be the first step toward mining them. Lifting stuff off the Earth is really expensive and difficult, but if we could actually manufacture space stuff in space itself, we could open up a lot of possibilities. Plus there's the fact that some asteroids are chock-full of valuable or rare metals, which could make some people very rich if they could get their hands on them.

Plus there's Mars. NASA wants to get a human being on the red planet in the 2030s. And Curiosity, NASA’s chattiest rover, just tweeted some new pictures of stuff it found. What a time to be alive!


It's a big ol' universe out there. I, for one, am excited to get out there and see it.

GIF via Discovery/YouTube.

Pets

Man jumps out of his car with a puppy in the most adorable red-light moment ever recorded

"I JUST WITNESSED THE PUREST THING EVER."

via Celina Romera / Flickr

When you see someone jump out of their car at a red light to talk with another motorist, usually it's bad news. Most of the time, it's the moment when road rage gets personal.

But 26-year-old Celina Romera caught video of probably one of the most adorable red-light interactions between motorists on December 15 in Tampa, Florida.

In the video, an unidentified man pops out of his car at a stoplight with a darling puppy in his hand. In the other car, a big German Shepherd pops his head out and the two dogs exchange kisses.

"I JUST WITNESSED THE PUREST THING EVER," Romera wrote on Facebook.

After the light changes, the man with the puppy gently walks back to the car. In the video Romera can be heard saying, "It's okay, man. Take your time."

One could imagine that the dogs were barking at each other before the video began.Then, the owner of the puppy thought it was okay for the two dogs to meet. The American Kennel Club says that barking between dogs is a pretty crude way to communicate.

However, it is part of a host of messages that dogs send to one another.

The job of a dog's owner is to determine if the dogs are ready to share a sniff or of one is fearful.

"The combination of barking, body language, and approach-avoidance behavior gives away the fearful dog's motivation, even to us relatively uneducated body-language readers," the Club says on its blog.

The original video Romera posted has been shared over 120,000 times.

The heartwarming video is a reminder that nothing can bring two strangers and millions of Facebook viewers together quite like dogs.


This article originally appeared on 12.16.19


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man in car puppy
Family

Mom ordered an infant-sized Frog and Toad shirt from China. When it arrived, she ‘just screamed.’

That's not what anyone was expecting.

via Kelsey Dawn Williamson / Facebook

An unexpected statement on a Frog and Toad T-shirt.

Kelsey Dawn Williamson, 23, from Benton, Illinois has ordered over 50 shirts from AliExpress, an online retailer based out of Hangzhou, China. But when the Frog and Toad shirt she ordered on May 10 arrived, she "literally did not know how to react so I just took a few moments to stare at it and try to process."

The infant-sized shirt has a picture of the iconic reptiles from the children's book series riding old-fashioned bikes with "FUCK THE POLICE" written at the bottom.

Williamson posted a photo of her daughter Salem in the shirt on Facebook and it quickly went viral.

The shirt that was delivered looked exactly like the one in the online store, just without the caustic N.W.A. lyric.

China, comedy, NWA

Frog and Toad T-shirt that was advertised.

aliexpress.com

While it seems utterly bizarre that someone would create a shirt with "FUCK THE POLICE" written beneath a picture of Frog and Toad — a duo who've never been known to harbor ill will against law enforcement — there's a good reason.

Memes featuring Frog and Toad are so popular they have their own subreddit. The shirtmaker, who probably doesn't have a license to use Frog and Toad, must have got the photo from a Google search. The person who made the shirt was most likely Chinese and either didn't speak English or has a very poor eye for detail.

After Williamson received the shirt, she Facetimed her husband and they screamed together. "We both just lost it, dying of laughter," she told Buzzfeed. "All he could say was 'Oh shit.'"

"I've told [Salem], 'People really like your frog shirt!'" Williamson said. But she's not letting her child wear the offensive shirt to preschool. "It's going in her baby box so we can bring it up when she's older."

Unfortunately, the incident has been all laughs for Williamson. She's received messages from people who've fat-shamed her daughter.

trolling, body shaming, negative feedback

The online trolling.

via Kelsey Dawn Williamson / Facebook

Frog and Toad memes, memes, fuck the police

Nothing nice to say.

via Kelsey Dawn Williamson / Facebook

e-commerce, Facebook, children\u2019s books

A positive message.

via Kelsey Dawn Williamson / Facebook

"People were actually messaging me just to say mean things about her," she said. "A ton of people calling her fat, asking me what I feed her to make her so big, telling me the shirt I bought was too small."

But Williamson has remained strong and fought back against the shamers. She edited her post to address her daughter's weight but refuses to take it down. "SHE SEES SPECIALISTS FOR HER WEIGHT. SHE CANT HELP IT. I CANT HELP IT. MY HUSBAND CANT HELP IT. IT IS OUT OF OUR CONTROL. JUST LAUGH AT THE FUNNY SHIRT," Williamson wrote on Facebook.

That's right people, just laugh at the funny shirt, and stay out of people's business.

children\u2019s literature, encouragement, education, social behavior

Frog says, “Come at me, bro!"

This article originally appeared on 06.01.19

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comedy
Parenting

Man asks how to help his wife who works full-time with a baby at home and keeps getting the same answer

More and more families are trying to scrape by — by trying to do it all

Photo by Katie Emslie on Unsplash

There are times in parenting where you just feel kind of useless.

You can't carry the baby, take a late-night breastfeeding shift, or absorb any of the pain and discomfort of childbirth.

Sometimes the best you can do is to try to take care of your partner.

That's what brought user u/DietyBeta to the AskParents subreddit with a well-meaning question.

"My wife watches our 1yo, works, and is 12 week pregnant. How can I make her daily life easier while I'm away at work?"

He says that when he gets home from work, he takes over all parenting and homemaking duties.

But yeesh! That's still... a lot to handle. No wonder his wife is stressed out.

A few folks chimed in to pat the OP on the back. After all, it's great to see a dad who realizes how much is falling on mom's shoulders and actively looking for ways to lighten the load!

Some helpful suggestions rolled in, like taking over meal prep and making her easy lunches to heat up, hiring cleaners, or paying someone to walk the dogs.

woman in black shirt lying on couch Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash


But then even more people came in to the comments asking the same question over and over: If mom is working, why isn't the 1-year-old in daycare?

u/young-mommy wrote: "Is the one year old in daycare? If not, I would start there. Working from home with a child gets harder and harder as they enter toddlerhood"

u/min2themax said: "It’s nice of you to be asking how to help her but she really is getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop here. It sounds like she is literally always working or parenting. Sometimes both at the same time. Walking the dogs and making her lunches and prepping meals and doing laundry is all well and good but this is not at all sustainable."

u/alternative-box3260 said: "Have the one year old in daycare. I was in a similar situation and it’s impossible. I was able to breath after that, not before."

And u/sillychihuahua26 wrote: "She’s caring for your 1.year old while working? That’s a horrible plan. You guys need childcare like yesterday."

We have a legitimate childcare crisis in our country, and stories like this one really bring it to life.

Childcare in the United States isn't nearly accessible or affordable enough for most families. Period.

ChildCare Aware found that that average cost of childcare in 2022 was $10,853 per year, or roughly 10% of a median family income (in 2024, it's likely even more than that — yet the actual workers at childcare centers are somehow severely underpaid).

But even that eye-popping number is conservative. Anyone who lives anywhere close to a city (or in California or New York) knows the number will be way higher. It's just not feasible for most families to put their child, let alone multiple children, in full-time care while they're young.

And yet! The percentage of households with two parents working full-time has been rising for decades. Life is more expensive than ever, and the extra income from two working parents really helps, even if it's offset by those child care costs.

More and more families are trying to scrape by — by trying to do it all

woman in white shirt sitting on brown wooden armchair Photo by Keren Fedida on Unsplash

Now we don't know whether the OP's family can afford childcare for their 1-year-old or not, although in a later update to the post he wrote:

"As far as daycare, she doesn't want to because she feels like she would be missing out on the time"

So even if you can afford childcare, there's the still the crushing guilt of shipping your child off to be raised by strangers to deal with! Classic.

(Take one guess who shoulders most of the daycare guilt — dads or moms?)

The work-from-home revolution has been a Godsend for parents in certain ways — flexibility, balance, less commuting time — but its also saddled many of them with double duty.

'Hey how about you work full-time because we need the money AND keep an eye on the kids, since you're home anyway!'

But it doesn't work like that, and trying to do both is crushing modern parents.

In fact, the Surgeon General of the United States just put out an official advisory based on the plummeting mental state of today's parents.

We know parents are having a hard time and that it's getting picked up in the national conversation. But hearing about a mom working full-time with a 1-year-old on her hip while pregnant, and a dad stuck working out of the house who's at a total loss for how to make things better really paints a pretty bleak picture.

No one should have to work full-time and parent full-time, at the same time.

A fridge full of microwavable lunches and a fleet of dog walkers isn't going to make it any better until things start changing from the very top.

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Race & Ethnicity

A 10-panel comic explores a subtle kind of racism many people of color experience

Not all questions are harmless.

Image from Facebook of Alexandra Dal.

People of color experience many types of subtle racism.



If we're being honest, we all make assumptions about other people, right?

We look at their skin, their clothes, and their car, and we make guesses about them that we don't even realize we're making. Everyone does it.

You ask a pregnant female coworker if she'll keep working after the baby is born — but you wouldn't think to ask that question of a guy who was about to become a dad.

You ask that nice girl behind the counter at the bagel shop whether she'll ever go to college so she can get a better job — only to learn that she's an underemployed Ph.D.

You ask a hipster-looking guy on the subway whether he's into artisanal pickles — but he just happens to be a bad dresser who has no idea what you're talking about.

The fact is, though, that people of color deal with other people's assumptions constantly.

Research shows that other people's expectations can have a profound effect on us. They can determine our success or failure. And black women deal with this nonsense more than others. In a recent study, nearly half of the female black and Latina scientists polled reported being mistaken for janitors or administrative staff.


Let's agree to fix this.

racism, comics, artist, Alexandra Dal

A comic created by Alexandra Dal on racial expectations.

Image from Facebook of Alexandra Dal.

This story originally appeared on 12.15.15

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Identity

10 Black women sat in first class on an airplane and it revealed a lot about race in America

"This weekend I went on a girls trip. 10 Black women flying first class. People literally could not process how it was possible."

via Angie Jones / Twitter and Matt Blaze / Flickr

Software developer Angie Jones' recent girls trip revealed that America still has a long way to go when it comes to race.

To most, that's not surprising. But what's unique is how the specific experience Jones and her friends went through revealed the pervasive way systemic racism still runs through our culture.

Jones is the Senior Director of Developer Relations at Applitools, holds 26 patented inventions in the United States of America and Japan, and is an IBM Master Inventor.

On July 27, she tweeted about a flight she took with nine other Black women and they all sat in first class. "People literally could not process how it was possible," she wrote. "Staff tried to send us to regular lines. Passengers made snide remarks. One guy even yelled 'are they a higher class of people than I am?!'"

Jones and her friends were the targets of racism that ranged from the seemingly unconscious — people who assumed that Black people don't sit in first class — to the blatant — those who were seriously bothered that Black people were being treated as having a higher status.

It's interesting that she didn't mention anyone saying "good for you" for succeeding in a world that often holds people of color back. Instead, she was greeted with incredulity and jealous rage.

There are a lot of white people who can't stand the idea of a Black person being elevated above them. It's disturbing that in there are still some who will admit it publicly.

Jones' tweets inspired a lot of people to share their stories about the racism they've experienced while flying first class.

Jones' tweets also angered some people to the point that they denied her story. To which she responded, "To those saying I'm lying, you're a huge part of the problem," she wrote. "You tell yourself a notable person is lying (for what reason, I cannot figure out) before you believe there are actual racists in...America."

One Twitter user came up with the perfect retort to the person who asked, "Are they a higher class of people than I am?!"

This article originally appeared on 07.29.21

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