For my next job, I was giving serious thought to applying to serve as a NASA astronaut, but lately, I’ve been having second thoughts.

For one thing, I’m not fond of traveling, and it clearly states on NASA’s Astronaut Candidate Application that “Extensive travel may be required.” Doggone! And in spite of that, there’s no mention whatsoever that frequent flyer miles might accumulate as a minor fringe benefit, or that my amazon Prime orders will still get two day delivery on Planet Zyrxx.

My dream job would be to serve as a sitting astronaut not a traveling one. When it comes to job assignments and scheduled space flights into the region of heavenly bodies and black holes, it seems that many are called but few are chosen. Thank goodness for that! My plans are for a stationary job, not one where I get fired-off-in-a-hot-pocket-rocket, headed for an alien world that might try to deport nice old ladies just because they keep dozing off while piloting the spaceship and landing on the wrong planet. And NASA has lots of job categories that would be perfect and wouldn’t require time spent above the ozone.

Take for example, the four NASA positions just filled for 2022 to subsist in a simulated Mars living environment for one year. Right here in the USA – in Houston, Texas! Any mother of seven children who reared 5 of them as pre-schoolers for 5 consecutive years should be a shoe-in candidate for life in harrowing circumstances. You can read all about the challenges I’d be facing here: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/12/nasa-wants-to-pay-you-to-live-in-a-mars-simulation-for-a-year.html

I would also really enjoy working in the NASA/JPL Mission Control Center wearing one of their nice blue polo shirts with the big headphones and a bowl of peanuts to munch on, and then jumping up all excited and yelling and clapping when the space ship makes a hair-perfect landing right next to the Martian Welcome Wagon with the free hot coffee, and with CBS News featuring me and my sitting co-astronauts on camera – all thrilled and animated and cheering – with our names spelled mostly correctly and with the camera person discreetly avoiding filming any of my thinning hair spots. A dream job if there ever was one! Except for a problem or two. Or several.

The salary would be okay, but it’s not as flashy as you might expect. The pay grades for civilian astronauts will vary based on academic achievements and experience. They are ranked on Federal Grades GS-11 through GS-14. According to NASA, here are the common salaries for astronauts and how they are categorized:

GS-11 astronauts average starting salary: $66,026 per year
GS-14 astronauts can earn up to $144,566 per year.

That may not seem like a lot when you think of how hazardous astronaut-ing can be. So far 30 astronauts and cosmonauts have died while training for or attempting dangerous space missions. (Of course, that’s not the kind I’ll be applying for. I’m not yet, at least, sufficiently deranged.)

At the time of the Apollo 11 flight in 1969, Neil Armstrong was paid a salary of $27,401 and was the highest paid of the flying astronauts.

According to the Boston Herald … “Armstrong’s historic moonwalk lasted two hours and 40 minutes. Based on his salary and a 40-hour work week, that means he would have been paid roughly $33 for his time on the moon. Accounting for inflation, Armstrong was paid $230 in 2019 dollars — so it seems like NASA really got a bargain considering the giant, history-making risk Armstrong was taking.”

Of course, he and the other two crew members – Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins – were also paid a per diem benefit while they were in space – an extra $8 per day, so there’s that. They weren’t covered for any government life insurance though, and couldn’t afford to pay for private insurance.

Thinking ahead, all 3 of the crew members signed papers with their autograph in hopes their wives could sell them in case of their deaths in space. Shortly after that, though, the government decided not to wait till somebody invented a GoFundMe website, and decided to allow future astronauts to sign up for the Federal Employees Group Life Insurance program.

Since I’m not military, my application must be submitted through the Office of Personnel Management’s USAJOBs website, http://www.usajobs.gov.

When I read the requirements, I learned that I need to be a U.S. citizen. So far so good. There are no age or gender requirements, so it looks like my age of 90 years and my female sex could be quite acceptable. There may be a minor glitch with the height required – a minimum of 5’1″ to a maximum 6’3” – but I’ll plan to show up for my interview in elevator shoes.

When I got to the next section of the application, the requirements got a little tricky. It says I would need a master’s degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) fields – which I don’t have. What I DO have though might be negotiable – a sterling CAN-DO attitude, brand new hearing aids, and a really sensational work ethic.

Oopsie! It says that as part of the Astronaut Candidate training program, Astronaut Candidates are required to complete military water survival before beginning their flying syllabus, and become scuba qualified to prepare them for the spacewalk training. Consequently, all Astronaut Candidates will be required to pass a swimming test during the first month of training.

This presents a problem for me since I don’t know how to swim. I did take swimming lessons at the YMCA at one time, but I nearly drowned during the third class. and I never went back. (To this day, I am still offended that the teacher used the occasion to demonstrate how to administer what I thought she called artificial insemination on me). I’m confident, however, that I can get up to speed on the swimming requirement. Thank goodness for YouTube. I don’t have a swimming pool or even a pond available for practice but anything is possible with YouTube.

Also required is a minimum of two years of relevant professional experience or at least 1,000 hours of pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft. I can’t claim that either but I intend to diligently list the number of times I rode Tourist Class on United Airlines, which should attest to my stamina and inventiveness in surviving cramped living conditions and terrible food.

Once I’m chosen, the application says my selection as an astronaut will depend upon satisfactory completion of the training and evaluation period. Graduation from the Astronaut Candidate program will require my successful completion of the following: International Space Station systems training, spacewalk skills training (I’ll need to bring my new walker) robotics skills training, Russian language training, and aircraft flight readiness training. Honk if you think I can DO IT.

Who knows if my (imaginary) Application for Astronaut Candidate would be accepted, deep-sixed, or even read, but as Ben Franklin once advised: nothing ventured, nothing gained. The only way to DO something is to TRY to.

The reason I’m blobbing about this now, is because today (11/7/2021) – unless it gets rescheduled – is the day the crew of Crew Dragon Endeavor is due to blast off from the International Space Station returning to Earth after their six months of duty. Their trip home is probably going to be uncomfortable for the NASA SpaceX Crew-2 astronauts Akihiko Hoshide of JAXA left, Thomas Pesquet of ESA, and Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough of NASA.

According to New York (CNN Business): Issues with the toilet on board SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule will leave the group of four astronauts without a bathroom option during their hours-long trip back home from the International Space Station aboard the 13-foot-wide capsule this month. Instead, the crew will have to rely on “undergarments,” Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, told reporters Friday night. SpaceX first discovered an issue with its spacecraft’s toilet last month while inspecting a different Crew Dragon capsule.

The plumbing problem is getting repaired on the other Crew Dragon capsules, but the Endeavor is the one parked outside the International Space Station waiting to transport the 4 folks coming home today. Thanks to its out-of-order potty chair, our four heroes will be discreetly outfitted in diapers for their 18 hour trip back to Earth. I hope they each have a more dependable bladder than I do. Or at least, a better tolerance for diaper rash. No job is perfect, after all.

But to be truthful here, a final word from them gives a better perspective than I’ve perpetrated here on what they’ve undergone. Pesquet, Kimbrough, McArthur, and Hoshide all agree that their time on station was memorable and challenging and that they’re trying to soak up every minute they have left on the space station.

According to Pesquot, “As we’re preparing to leave, it’s kind of a bittersweet feeling because we might never come back to see the ISS,” he said. “And it really is a magical place.”

Pesquet said that seeing the Earth from space, and doing important research that benefits everyone here on Earth is a dream come true. “To me, that’s what dreams are made of,” he said. “And I’m very thankful that people dreamt the ISS some time ago and then went ahead and worked hard to make it happen and to build it for the benefit of everyone.” 

Or as NASA writes on its official benefits page, “Your NASA job is the greatest benefit of all. When you put the whole package together — our work, the pay, the benefits, being part of the NASA family — we truly have some of the best jobs on earth … or above it!”

Anybody else besides me want a NASA job “that dreams are made of”??? Apply here: Office of Personnel Management’s USAJOBs website, http://www.usajobs.gov. Tell ’em Octo-woman sent you.