Astronaut Selection Around the World

By Katherine Denner, 10th Grade, Horsham PA

Last month’s livechat on astronaut selection and training was full of interesting information on how NASA chooses and prepares its astronauts. However, NASA isn’t the world’s only space agency, and I wondered how the other fourteen nations that contributed astronauts to the ISS picked and prepped their astronauts. As it turns out, the training is fairly standard, partly because the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) trains European and Japanese astronauts, in addition to its own. Selection, however, can vary quite a bit.

Like in NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) allows the general public to apply to become an astronaut. Selection is extremely competitive, which is to be expected when you are competing with the citizens of not just one but of eighteen countries! From the thousands of applications received during the last round of applications, 8413 qualified to move further on in the selection process, with just six making the final cut. In comparison, on average NASA selects sixteen astronauts per group, out of a pool of thousands of qualified applicants. In 2009, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) called for applications to become an astronaut, for the third time in its history. The agency received 5300 applications, from which they chose just two astronauts. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) also opens applications to the general public. It did so for the sixth time in 2009, and received just 963 applications – more than any screening before it. After eight months of screening, JAXA initially chose just two of those 963 applicants; a third was chosen five months later.

Unlike the aforementioned agencies, the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA) does not open applications to the general public, but rather selects its astronauts from a group of 1,500 fighter pilots. CNSA also has unusually stringent health requirements for its candidates, which only about 1% meet. Among other things, Chinese astronauts must not have bad breath, snore, or have a history of serious illness within the last three generations. To think that some of us thought NASA’s requirements were tough!

Sources:
http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronauts/recruitment.asp
http://www.esa.int/esaHS/ESA1RMGBCLC_astronauts_0.html#subhead4
http://www.jaxa.jp/projects/iss_human/astro/index_e.html
http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum32/HTML/000149.html
http://www.china.org.cn/english/msf/77607.htm
http://www.sinodefence.com/astronaut/astronaut-corps.asp
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1203926/Wanted-New-Chinese-astronauts--bad-breath-runny-noses.html