Question Is it really difficult to work in NASA or ESA?

[luki1997a]

As most of you, my dream is to fly into space, or be an astronaut. Mine are both. So I want to ask, if it is really very difficult to be an astronaut? I heard you have to have at least 1000 hrs flew in a jet plane, have a bachelor's degree(of course) and be very healthy. Also most of astronauts have never been in space. It's mostly an office work. What about payment?

Is it really that difficult? How difficult is at the University? Being a programmer, which is often a well-paid job(1000-6000 Euro), would be better(to get a job as)?

I don't say I'm going to be an astronaut, but I want to know if it is really that difficult.

 

[Urwumpe]

Yes, it is difficult to get there: Both have relatively little jobs themselves, most work is done by contractors.

PS: Don't do it for the money. It will not make you happy - at least the salary in the public sector.

 

[luki1997a]

Also I don't know if being a programmer would give me a big headache everyday:lol:

 

[Urwumpe]

Also I don't know if being a programmer would give me a big headache everyday:lol:

I work as programmer in the automotive engineering world. I can tell you, headache should be the least of your worries. Carpal tunnel syndrome and the urge to rip off your clothes and storm with a battle axe into the office of your favorite customer are your bigger dangers.

Programming is only 50-60% of the job, the rest is meetings, planning, documentation and training. I have the lucky situation that I don't need to work overtime often, getting my work done in 40 hours per week.

Yes, sometimes you need to think a lot. Sometimes you can get a headache there, if you do it wrong. usually you have enough other coworkers, to prevent you getting a headache from your problems alone.

 

[luki1997a]

Is your job like in Google? There you get a task and a deadline to finish it. Then you have few days left. Also you have to be in work only for "filling man-hours".
BTW Do you think that myth about great conditions in google(bowling, bar and sometimes access newest technologies) true?

 

[N_Molson]

Is it really difficult to work in NASA or ESA

Don't do this, from what we can read over this forum, NASA and other state-owned agencies people are obviously a whole bunch of incompetents.

Start your own commercial space company in your garage. :yes:

Seriously, if you want something, try as hard as you can. Maybe you won't be astronaut, but its possible you'll end in the astronautic industry, which, I think, is a very interesting job.

A lot of astronauts that aren't issued from the army have a Physics, Engineering or Biology doctorate. For exemple Buzz E. Aldrin wrote his thesis on Orbital Rendez-Vous techniques. Being a scientist interested in space can be a way to be picked up for a mission. I guess its a matter of convincing an agency how interesting your research works could be, and how much profitable the fallouts could be.

 

[Urwumpe]

Is your job like in Google? There you get a task and a deadline to finish it. Then you have few days left. Also you have to be in work only for "filling man-hours".

Yes, that describes it approximately. I negotiate with my customers about the technical side and the time estimates for the work, my boss about the financial aspects. I have to finish the job in the time budget that I estimated myself and which the customer approved. I don't work from 9 to five, but rather in 8 hour work packages until the work is finished. I have to organize myself, manage a pretty big number of projects in parallel and "waste" a lot of my time sitting in meetings with my customers. I don't really like meetings, but especially about defining standards, they are mandatory. When a work package takes longer than planned, it is no deal getting the work-hours negotiated with the customers, usually we are finishing the tasks with a few many hours left that we can use for further improvements during the early operations of the software. I will be paid even when I do work that is not paid by any customer, but it isn't a good choice if you want to give your boss reasons for your next rise.

The biggest challenge isn't the coding. It is helping your customer explain his requirements so that you can help him. Your customer often has no clue of software development and doesn't really want to learn it. you have to speak his language better than he can speak yours.

In general, it is a great job here. It isn't the spaceflight job that I dreamed of, but what I do here is much better than I ever imagined in spaceflight. My small team is professional as hell, even better than many more specialized software development teams here. We don't use the latest hypes and brand new tools, but we choose our tools well and are all using them to our advantage. And that is what you really want as developer to prevent the headaches.

BTW Do you think that myth about great conditions in google(bowling, bar and sometimes access newest technologies) true?

From experiences with my company or Blizzard, it doesn't sound that mystical. It is more or less the truth. It is cheaper for companies to pay atmosphere at the work site, than compensating a lack of good work conditions by a higher salary.

We don't have a bowling alley here, but we do have a properly working event management for some organized excursions. Our access to newest technologies is just a bit different... we help designing the newest technologies, but what we use is pretty much main stream computers or what the customer of our services provides. Notebooks with docking station, big TFT display and external keyboard is the norm here for development, we work pretty mobile in the sense, that our software has to be working in the infrastructure of our customers - which does mean embedded work alongside our customers.

I can't tell you how your job as programmer will be like finally, I had seen many extremes already and like what I have now. But pretty often, I created the hell in my job myself in the past, because I lacked the experience to organize myself and help balancing the workload better, fixing my lack of wisdom with an abundance of overtime. But you can't do that for more than a few months before you will become a wreck and will eventually be happy to be unemployed again.

 

[Pipcard]

What about being an aerospace engineer (for rockets, satellites) instead of an astronaut?

 

[Codz]

What about being an aerospace engineer (for rockets, satellites) instead of an astronaut?

Completely different jobs and talents.

 

[N_Molson]

There are plenty of aerospace engineers here in Toulouse. They usually have to study 5 years in quite selective engineering schools. I used to know a guy that worked on satellites at the age of 23, which is young.

 

[garyw]

Is your job like in Google? There you get a task and a deadline to finish it. Then you have few days left. Also you have to be in work only for "filling man-hours".
BTW Do you think that myth about great conditions in google(bowling, bar and sometimes access newest technologies) true?

I can't speak for programming as I've never been a programming. I have worked with them and I can tell you that some of the deadlines are arbitrarily set. Management seem to think that a deadline is required just because it won't get done otherwise.

As for Google, I know people who have worked there and yes, it's all true.

 

[Hielor]

So I want to ask, if it is really very difficult to be an astronaut?

Yes.

I heard you have to have at least 1000 hrs flew in a jet plane,

No. Not all astronauts are pilots. For Shuttle crews, only the CDR and PLT had to have a ton of jet experience--mission/payload specialists don't need to be pilots, they just need to be very, very good at what they do.

have a bachelor's degree(of course)

At the absolute least. Higher is better.

and be very healthy.

Yes, definitely.

Is it really that difficult?

Given how many applicants they get, the hardest part is getting selected to be an astronaut. You also can't really just say "I want to be an astronaut" and do that--you really need to pick something else (science or engineering, typically) both so you'll have the needed credentials to be selected and so you'll have something to do when you don't get selected.

How difficult is at the University?

Not sure what you mean, you can't exactly get a bachelor's degree in Astronauthood. The difficulty of your university experience is entirely up to you.

Being a programmer, which is often a well-paid job(1000-6000 Euro), would be better(to get a job as)?

Define "would be better." For useful skills and the ability to be hired someplace? Definitely. For money? Definitely. With any given skill set, you will make more money somewhere else than you will make as a government contractor.

You can work on a space program without being an astronaut. For every one person they send into space, there are several thousand people on the ground doing everything "behind the scenes" needed to have a successful mission.

I don't say I'm going to be an astronaut, but I want to know if it is really that difficult.

Yes, becoming an astronaut is an extremely difficult thing to do.

If you want to work for a space program and have a better-than-average chance of becoming an astronaut, look at the list of science/engineering jobs available at NASA/ESA and their contractors. Pick one that you would be happy doing and that you would be good at, get a major in that at a good university. While you're at university, do an internship or a co-op somewhere useful (for example, I co-oped at United Space Alliance for a semester) to get your "foot in the door." Take a job there after college. After you've worked there successfully for a few years, maybe apply to the astronaut program.

 

[Enjo]

I can't speak for programming as I've never been a programming. I have worked with them and I can tell you that some of the deadlines are arbitrarily set. Management seem to think that a deadline is required just because it won't get done otherwise.

I get the same impression. Additionally, my manager says that it's ok not to follow the plan. If you don't make it in time, the plan just needs to be updated. Probably it helps the management to manage human resources ahead and explain before the clients. Note though that I'm in a large and serious company, like Urwumpe. When I was programming in Poland in small, funny companies, it wasn't all that candy dandy. At my first job (12 control engineers), extending the deadline made my boss go postal. Luckly I continuously develop my skills in free time, so I could look for more ambitious jobs. A portfolio page with screenshots and descriptions of my private projects helped me much, despite all my so called friends telling me that it is not important for my potential employers and only job experience counts. They were simply jealous.

 

[Urwumpe]

I can't speak for programming as I've never been a programming. I have worked with them and I can tell you that some of the deadlines are arbitrarily set. Management seem to think that a deadline is required just because it won't get done otherwise.

As for Google, I know people who have worked there and yes, it's all true.

Depends on the management. I also have had situations, in which both me and my manager knew, that the customer won't buy the time budget when exceeding xyz hours, and won't believe that this time is necessary to finish the problem. But there are more solutions to the problem than just making you work some hours more to keep the ambitious schedule.

One good way is looking for alternative use cases for the same task, and let the customer decide - not all of the problem solution is programming, ideally for your customer, you don't need to program anything at all, but just appear at the first meetings with him, talk some wisdom and all problems are solved.

Another option is creative time budget keeping. I had often use the fact that I have multiple customers paying me to program the same program and am often able selling the same feature to them as well. If 200 hours is too much, reducing it to 100 by making different customers pay for different work items is a solution - you just need to sell it. My customers are happy when I point out synergies with other planned developments, because it means for them also, that they can maybe even get more for their money, than they initially planned.

Arbitrary deadlines can still happen, also to me. But this is pretty rare, and usually just a matter of bug fixes taking more time than the allotted hours in the next weeks of our preliminary project schedule. That is then where my overtime can come from. But as said above: It isn't much, ideally nothing. I still have enough time for internal activities of my team, like preparing presentations or doing research for improving processes.

 

[jimblah]

Much of what we perceive as reality depends on our Point of View...

As most of you, my dream is to fly into space, or be an astronaut. Mine are both. So I want to ask, if it is really very difficult to be an astronaut?

At five I wanted to be an Astronaut and it has stuck with me my entire life. I credit this dream as the most reasonable explanation that I'm still here. At forty-two I know the likely hood I will ever leave the gravitational influence of Earth is next to nothing.

But at ten a man by the name of Carl Sagan introduced me to the notion of the space ship of the imagination with the help of something as simple and as precious as a dandelion. He also showed me the the perception that Earth is a space ship unto itself, with the myriad of creatures and all of humanity along for the ride down through the ages; and in that respect I've been an astronaut all along and will continue to be till I draw my last breath. Orbiter, by the way is a HUGE shot in the arm for my imagination...

So the next time your with your favorite person, camping, at the beach, or running your favorite scenario give pause long enough to ask; Is it difficult being an astronaut?

This moment has been brought to you by at least 3.5 billion years of evolutionary development by transitional lifeforms ranging from single cell amoebas, to dinosaurs, and us. May God Bless each and every one of them...

 

[luki1997a]

Thank you guys. I think I'm going to be a programmer and launch my homemade rockets from time to time:lol:

btw I heard of a toothpaste tester, which became a rocket engineer:lol: He is going to send 2 humans into a suborbital flight soon(this year I think). Engineering at this level does not require any university degree, at least knowledge of physics' laws.

 

[Urwumpe]

Just don't make the mistake that, by not learning engineering to the same extend as a full engineer, you will be able to do the same work or better.

Most of the engineering studies stuff is really important, and computer science studies are not known for teaching you proper project management. I had the lectures and a special institute about such stuff here - but still, what you learn in the lectures and how your own teachers handle their projects, are two different things, contrary to engineering studies, in which you have a pretty high standard of project management.