Victor Glover, a nine-year veteran of the astronaut corps who will fly around the moon in 2025, said the search for excellence and diversity were not mutually exclusive.
Do you dream of leaving the planet?
NASA is looking for its next group of astronauts, and you have until April 2 to make a pitch for yourself.
“Typically, it’s a very popular application,” April Jordan, NASA’s astronaut selection manager, said.
The odds that you will be chosen are slim. The last time NASA put out a call for applications, in 2020, more than 12,000 people applied.
It took the agency a year and a half to go through the applications. NASA selected just 10 of the hopefuls, or 0.083 percent. That makes Harvard’s 3.5 percent acceptance rate among high school applicants appear bountiful.
“So when I say ‘popular,’” Ms. Jordan said, “it’s probably an understatement.”
Ms. Jordan is on a media tour to spread the word that “the right stuff” for being an astronaut in 2024 is not the same as what it was in the 1960s, when astronauts were all white men, almost all from the military.
Joining her on that tour, which included a stop at The New York Times, was Victor Glover, a nine-year veteran of the astronaut corps who offered a glimpse into how he made it through the rigorous selection process.