Was browsing the USAJobs site today, and noticed that NASA's aggressively soliciting candidates for the 2009 astronaut class:

http://www.usajobs.opm.gov/featured_employer/article.asp

Any takers? (Damned if I'm not tempted...should've been 10 years, 20 pounds, and several thousand cigars ago, though...)

Notice what else is being advertised -- they're taking applications for the position of Director, Flight Crew Operations.

So, Deke's old job is open. If you could stay in the position for another 12 years, you'd get the opportunity to select which people will be the *next* to set foot on the Moon... *grin*...

-the other Doug

Oh, crap...that's tempting in its own way...(should I??)

Dammit, no; I wanna go, not say who can and cannot.

So did Deke.

-the other Doug

...and the pay's not bad. But the insistence on citizenship! Grrrr!

Andy, UK passport holder.

Didn't stop Mike and Piers You've got to want to do it badly enough - that's all. Very very few actually do. We all SAY we'd do anything...but actually...I wouldn't...I wouldn't emigrate and get US citizenship to do it. Some people would. They're the ones who want it badly enough.

Doug

Doug, I'm too old - and a degree in Archaeology is not likely to help my case. Well, not until a Bonestell-esque Martian temple needs excavating.

Andy

Guess the places we're all taken...
The link leads to another job already...
Can someone post a direct link to what nprev made reference too?
Just curious...

Crap...sorry, ustrax, the job was the 'featured' one of the day yesterday, and has since changed. Here's the direct link to the job announcement. Doesn't close until next July, so you've got plenty of time to get your resume together!

Tips for anyone seriously interested: It's in the 0801 series, which in other parts of the US government translates to general engineering; strongly emphasize any and all engineering/science credentials you might have. Interesting to note also that they'll accept teaching (K-12, which is primary education) experience in lieu of the previous. Physical fitness is a huge area of interest in the Department of Defense right now, so I suspect that NASA may be on that bandwagon as well.

Wouldn't it be cool to send a UMSFer to the Moon someday...wish it could be me, but rooting for any one of us that could actually do it!!! (You young people take note...I'm lookin' at you, Volcanopele!!!)

In Belgium, a commercial radio station gave away a place onboard a future SpaceAdventures suborbital flight

Aren't there Navy Pilots out there eager for such a chance?

When I was in the Navy I knew people who were in line
for such a job and it seemed to be a limited few.

How strange it is that NASA has to advertise for such
a job.

It looks to me like they're looking for Mission Specialists -- "Scientist astronauts". The pilots would apply (and be chosen) on a different track.

Funny to hear some of the comments, because it brings back memories of school. My friends couldn't understand why I was so interested in to space, yet had no desire to be an astronaut. To be clear, this is not a comment about manned versus unmanned spaceflight as a course of action. But for me personally, I have never had any desire to be on top of a rocket, especially when the only destination that won't take up years of my life to get to (excluding training) is the moon. The way I looked (and look at it), as long as cameras exist, I have never had any desire to fly into space, at least in anything resembling a modern spacecraft. Again, this isn't to criticize those who do - I am speaking for myself.

It isn't "advertising", it is the standard method for posting a US civil servant job

Sure thing Ted, and most 'space jobs' are here on Earth

If you want to motivate Volcanopele, I think you're talking about the wrong moon.

I'm with Ted.

All we have to do is construct a mission plan to some of the Moon's extinct cinder cones; he'll eat it up!

I doubt it, Nick. Jason is only interested in active or recently active volcanoes, I do believe -- and the youngest volcanic features on the Moon are on the order of a billion or so years old. (Some may be just younger than that, but not much -- the absolute youngest features may be as little as 800 million years old, but that's not very rigorously constrained.)

There has been volcanic activity on Mars far more recently than on the Moon, and we all know how Jason feels about that red *thing*...

-the other Doug

Run, Jason, Run!
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3673008

Volcano Erupts Off Yemen; 8 Missing
Volcano Erupts on Red Sea Island Off Yemen Spewing Lava, Ash Into the Air; 8 Missing.... lava flows and clouds of smoke and ash reach skyward after a volcano eruption on the island of Jazirt Atta-Ir in the Red Sea 70 nautical miles off the coast of Yemen on Sunday Sept. 30, 2007.

It's right on the Red Sea rift zone where the sea's narrowing as you approach the exit to the Indian Ocean from the northwest.