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Job Opening: "Frequent travel may be required"

usajobs.gov

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Re: Job Opening: "Frequent travel may be required"

#31

Post by redthrowaway »

coderdude wrote: post #20

>>SALARY RANGE: $64,724.00 to $141,715.00 / Per Year Space Shuttle Endeavour cost about $1.7 billion, each Space Shuttle flight cost $450 million, $480.1 million has been awarded through the COTS program - and they would pay an astronaut $65k/year. I'm guessing they feel that the rare opportunity to be in space is enough pay for you. ;) I'd still do it if I qualified for it. PS: I wish people would stop with the lazy…

>PS: I wish people would stop with the lazy and "funny" comments. It's like wading through crap.

Indeed. I think the submission being a light/fluff piece brings out commenters who otherwise would stay away. That's not a complaint about the submission, however. It's both informative and, on a deep and nerdly level, really cool.

Re: Job Opening: "Frequent travel may be required"

#32

Post by bbrizzi »

coderdude wrote: post #20

>>SALARY RANGE: $64,724.00 to $141,715.00 / Per Year Space Shuttle Endeavour cost about $1.7 billion, each Space Shuttle flight cost $450 million, $480.1 million has been awarded through the COTS program - and they would pay an astronaut $65k/year. I'm guessing they feel that the rare opportunity to be in space is enough pay for you. ;) I'd still do it if I qualified for it. PS: I wish people would stop with the lazy…

I find this low too but the job title is "Astronaut Candidate". This probably does not guarantee that you'll actually go to space. If you manage to go through all the training and get on a real space mission, the salary will probably be higher.

Re: Job Opening: "Frequent travel may be required"

#33

Post by ww520 »

coderdude wrote: post #20

>>SALARY RANGE: $64,724.00 to $141,715.00 / Per Year Space Shuttle Endeavour cost about $1.7 billion, each Space Shuttle flight cost $450 million, $480.1 million has been awarded through the COTS program - and they would pay an astronaut $65k/year. I'm guessing they feel that the rare opportunity to be in space is enough pay for you. ;) I'd still do it if I qualified for it. PS: I wish people would stop with the lazy…

It depends where you live. In the NASA launch area, it goes a long way.

Re: Job Opening: "Frequent travel may be required"

#34

Post by tomkarlo »

bbrizzi wrote: post #32
coderdude wrote: post #20

>>SALARY RANGE: $64,724.00 to $141,715.00 / Per Year Space Shuttle Endeavour cost about $1.7 billion, each Space Shuttle flight cost $450 million, $480.1 million has been awarded through the COTS program - and they would pay an astronaut $65k/year. I'm guessing they feel that the rare opportunity to be in space is enough pay for you. ;) I'd still do it if I qualified for it. PS: I wish people would stop with the lazy…

I find this low too but the job title is "Astronaut Candidate". This probably does not guarantee that you'll actually go to space. If you manage to go through all the training and get on a real space mission, the salary will probably be higher.

Why would they pay more? It's not like you're going to quit after getting selected for flight just because you want a $10K raise.

Re: Job Opening: "Frequent travel may be required"

#36

Post by hugh3 »

listrophy wrote: post #14
sv123 wrote: post #10

Does anybody know how competitive something like this is? Do they get thousands or tens of thousands of applicants? I want to set my expectations accordingly.

I have a rejection letter from the last round. IIRC, the letter said the number applicants was either 2k or 20k. Sorry for the huge range, but it was ~4 years ago. I believe they accepted 12 into the program.

Kinda makes me wonder why they don't tighten up the application criteria. Bachelor's degree in something vaguely sciencey plus three years experience? Compare that to the actual CVs of the nine folks they selected (out of 3500) last time:

http://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/ascans2009.html

Re: Job Opening: "Frequent travel may be required"

#37

Post by bfe »

jobu wrote: post #19
commieneko wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kind of pisses me off that the US is having to buy seats on Soyuz launches. Of course I grew up reading Tom Corbett and watched the first moon landing on a 12 inch black and white TV...

I think it's fantastic for two reasons. First, it keeps the lights on for the Russian space industry (more players makes for a more interesting field). Second, I believe the next big achievements in space will likely be done by private industry. This sets a bar for the cost to get people into space. Whenever some company can safely match the price of $50mil per person we will start having some real competition.

SpaceX is a few bells and whistles away from a human-rated Crew Configuration of the Dragon spacecraft with seating for seven. Their initial contract for unpiloted cargo flights of Falcon 9 / Dragon to ISS charges an average of $133 million per flight. At the same rate, they could sell passenger seats for only $19 million.

That's just a back of the envelope calculation with a gazillion assumptions, but useful for making projections for the next few years.

Re: Job Opening: "Frequent travel may be required"

#38

Post by listrophy »

hugh3 wrote: post #36
listrophy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a rejection letter from the last round. IIRC, the letter said the number applicants was either 2k or 20k. Sorry for the huge range, but it was ~4 years ago. I believe they accepted 12 into the program.

Kinda makes me wonder why they don't tighten up the application criteria. Bachelor's degree in something vaguely sciencey plus three years experience? Compare that to the actual CVs of the nine folks they selected (out of 3500) last time: http://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/ascans2009.html

For some perspective of where I was: bachelors degrees in "Computer Science" and "Engineering Mechanics & Astronautics." And 4 years of aerospace engineering experience. I just barely made it past the official requirements, but I'm pretty sure they wanted someone older/more experienced. I'm also not in amazing shape, but I was Good Enough(tm). Apparently it wasn't enough to warrant an interview. shrug

Re: Job Opening: "Frequent travel may be required"

#39

Post by rdtsc »

coderdude wrote: post #20

>>SALARY RANGE: $64,724.00 to $141,715.00 / Per Year Space Shuttle Endeavour cost about $1.7 billion, each Space Shuttle flight cost $450 million, $480.1 million has been awarded through the COTS program - and they would pay an astronaut $65k/year. I'm guessing they feel that the rare opportunity to be in space is enough pay for you. ;) I'd still do it if I qualified for it. PS: I wish people would stop with the lazy…

A lot of astronauts didn't actually fly anywhere. A lot of them have spent decades training and waiting. So it doesn't even guarantee you'll fly anywhere (well except Baikonur or Moscow for training).

Re: Job Opening: "Frequent travel may be required"

#40

Post by sliverstorm »

coderdude wrote: post #20

>>SALARY RANGE: $64,724.00 to $141,715.00 / Per Year Space Shuttle Endeavour cost about $1.7 billion, each Space Shuttle flight cost $450 million, $480.1 million has been awarded through the COTS program - and they would pay an astronaut $65k/year. I'm guessing they feel that the rare opportunity to be in space is enough pay for you. ;) I'd still do it if I qualified for it. PS: I wish people would stop with the lazy…

I'd still do it if I qualified for it.

Hence why they don't have to pay astronauts half a million.

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