If you were thinking of traveling to the Moon or Mars anytime soon as a NASA astronaut, you have until December 3rd to put in your application.
Here is NASA’s summary of the position: Astronaut candidates will spend approximately two years training on the basic skills required to be an astronaut – from spacewalking and robotics to leadership and teamwork skills. Upon completing training, they will join the active astronaut corps and become eligible for spaceflight assignment. Until assigned a spaceflight, they will have responsibilities within the astronaut office ranging from supporting their fellow astronauts in space to advising on the development of new spacecraft.
The pay is between $164,395 – $164,395 per year, and some travel may be required, such as a trip to the Moon Base someday, if you are lucky.
One more thing, you will need to meet these conditions first:
U.S. Citizenship Required
Must meet all qualification/education and experience requirements by the closing date of the announcement. See announcement for more details on Test Pilot School completion
Applicants may only select ONE discipline group to apply under (See “Qualifications” section below)
Selectees will be designated Astronaut Candidates and will undergo a training and evaluation period lasting approximately two years
Applicants must submit ALL STEM related transcripts. See announcement for more details on Basic Education Requirements.
Position subject to pre-employment background investigation or higher-level clearance. Investigation/Clearance may differ and be required based on NASA Center requirements.
Financial Disclosure, Drug Testing, and/or the Travel Requirements for this position may differ and be required based on NASA Center requirements.
Yes, it is quite a list, so you better get to work now on that application. You can find more details at USA Jobs.
Image (Credit): NASA’s Space Launch System rocket launching on April 1, 2026 with the Orion spacecraft and four crew members. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Geophysical Research Letters abstract of pre-print study findings:
The total electron content observations during the Artemis-II Lunar mission revealed rare reoccurring ionospheric perturbations at three different occasions. The launch at 2235 UT on 1 April 2026 from Kennedy Space Center, USA, induced shock-acoustic and gravity wave modulations. Subsequent Apogee Raise Burn performed at 0023 UT on 2 April triggered shock waves and unprecedented large-scale disturbances that elongated ~50° longitude across North America. The third orbital maneuver conducted as part of trans-Lunar injection burn at 2349 UT on 2 April, about 25 hours after liftoff, again yielded similar, but weaker large-scale ionospheric perturbations. This is the first time a single space mission produced three instances of ionospheric disturbances over the same region during successive orbit maneuvers. The estimated spacecraft trajectory shows that the two orbit maneuvers were initiated at the perigee altitude of 185 km over the longitudes of 120°W-105°W, directly depositing exhaust burn energy within the ionosphere.
Citation: Choi, J., Lin, C., Chou, M. et al. Rare reoccurring ionosphere disturbances observed during the Artemis-II Lunar flyby voyage. Geophys. Res. Lett..
Image (Credit): Anakin Skywalker from the Star Wars movies. (Lucasfilm Ltd.)
“The point I’m making is obvious when one considers other popular, compelling fictional protagonists who commit unspeakable evils; no serious person really thinks that Breaking Bad’s murderous drug dealer Walter White and The Sopranos’ even more murderous gangster Tony Soprano are great role models. Yet when it comes to Anakin, some large number of right-wing guys on X seem to earnestly think he had the right idea because they imagine that deep down, his politics matches theirs.”
-Quote from a Reason magazine article titled, “Anakin Skywalker Is a Great Character, Not a Great Role Model.” The bottom line is that the actions of a moody teenager with a light saber are not the best model for present-day mortals. I think the youth today would be better following in the steps of Luke Skywalker. If that doesn’t work for you, follow the original Yoda, or even Baby Yoda. We already have enough moody males making deals with the devil.
Image (Credit): “The Dementors of Cepheus,” by Julien De Winter, Landon Boehm, and Brian Diaz. (Astronomy Magazine)
This week’s image is the winning entry from Astronomy magazine’s 2026 Astrophotography Contest. The winning image is titled “The Dementors of Cepheus,” captured by Julien De Winter, Landon Boehm, and Brian Diaz. It was one of about 1,400 entries in the contest.
The magazine defines the image in this way:
A pair of shadowy, wraithlike figures weave their way through a grand tapestry of stellar life and death in our grand-prize-winning image. The imagers refer to them as the “Dementors of Cepheus” — a reference to the wardens of the prison Azkaban in the Harry Potter series. Here, they guard not convicts, but a corpse: The filaments of gas in the center of the frame are the remnants of a supernova, cataloged as SNR G110.3+11.3, that blew apart a massive star.
The supernova is approximately 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus.
You can read more about this winning image as well as the winners in other categories at the magazine’s gallery site.
It would be great if NASA had a number of rocket suppliers run by boring corporate types who competently provided a service and then quietly went home to their families each night. But we don’t. NASA as well as the Department of Defense have become more and more reliant on one erratic man and one company for most of its rocket needs. This is a problem.
Elon Musk does not go home each night to relax with a drink or attend charitable events. No, he spends his time interfering in foreign affairs, be it Ukraine or England, while spending hundreds of millions of dollars on US elections. Even more troublesome, he joined the current administration to systematically destroy parts of the government based on incomplete, inaccurate or fabricated data. This is a problem.
So with the recent election and the coming change in Congress, what can we expect regarding Mr. Musk and SpaceX?
The newspapers are full of potential problems that were foreseeable yet ignored or hidden by the White House.
SpaceX Starlink: The new Congress is likely to open investigations on Mr. Musk’s involvement in the degradation of Starlink services shortly after President Trump announced plans to import Russian fuel while also telling Ukraine to cease the destruction of energy facilities in Russia – a country that continues to randomly murder Ukranian civilians.
As Silicon Valley’s elected members in Congress, we represent hundreds of innovation economy employers and workers whose livelihoods depend on the credibility of American technology abroad..Politically motivated service interruptions or erratic throttling will undermine reputations developed through decades of work that Americans have led to support our allies and customers throughout the world.
An October article in TheEconomist made it clear that Europe needed to move away from Starlink and Mr. Musk a well, stating:
Recent days have made clear the folly of relying too much for your national security on a capricious private citizen named Elon Musk.
Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): The destruction of various government offices and services by DOGE, particularly the US Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as the potential misuse of private government data, will also be the subject of congressional investigations. Government audits have already determined DOGE activities were poorly documented and its findings overstated.
The DOGE chickens are coming home to roost. Elon Musk waved a chainsaw on stage and laughed while firing public servants and gutting the services Americans rely on. Then he lied to the American people about the savings. He must answer for it under oath.
SpaceX Rockets: Many on the Hill will question the risks associated with the government’s reliance on a single rocket company run by an individual with questionable ties to Russia’s President Putin. Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich has also called for the nationalization of SpaceX – an unlikely event, but an indication of the current mood among some Democrats.
Greater scrutiny of SpaceX’s government contracts were called for In the same letter noted above, with the Democratic Congressmen stated:
We will ensure that the 120th Congress will closely scrutinize federal funding awarded to Mr. Musk’s businesses, including whether these companies meet their contractual obligations, and whether adequate safeguards exist against political interference, arbitrary service restrictions, and misuse of federal resources.
Mr. Musk also shot himself in the foot by spending over $45 million on the recent Texas US Senate race only to see his candidate lose, in part because of the backlash against Musk’s excessive involvement. This lost race, as well as the election of a Democratic governor, is not good news for Texas-based SpaceX.
None of this will go away under the new Congress, and if the past is any guide, Mr. Musk’s attempts to try to make it go away will only make it worse for him and for the rest of us.
Note: I have seen various accounts regarding the amount that Mr. Musk spent on the election. According to Scripps New, the amount is estimated at about $474 million nationwide, with about $224 million targeted at Texas alone. Of that $224 million, at least $158 million was given to the Senate Republican super PAC.
