Astronaut Class

During my site-hoping morning, I came across this quick brief on NASA.gov:
2009 Astronaut Class

Now, why would I be excited about this? Well, judging based on previously-inducted astronaut classes, I can expect the recruitment to occur every three/four years, which is pretty nice. So, 2013, 2016, and 2020 will see a couple dozen new astronauts each, with 2020 being my first possible inclusion into the selection process. Each class usually accepts less than 1% of the thousands of applicants, and that won’t change any time soon.

Now, checking out some more stuff about this newest class, they will never fly on the Space Shuttle. The aging shuttle fleet will be retired before they complete their two-three year training, leaving them a three-year window before the Orion is ready for manned spaceflight (Source: SPACE.com).

In other news, I found this nice timeline about the entirety of the selection process, based on NASA’s published one with some edits made. There are also a bunch of graphs helping to predict class compositions and other variables in the new astronaut classes. While slightly off, the timeline is still a nice resource for myself and anyone else looking to become an astronaut.
Astronaut for Hire