Wanted: Astronauts; Missing: US rocket to fly them

Wanted: Astronauts; Missing: US rocket to fly them

Looking for a job? NASA is hiring astronauts. You can even apply online at a giant government jobs website.

There's only one hitch: NASA doesn't have its own spaceship anymore and is sending fewer fliers into orbit right now.

"The experience is well worth the wait," promised NASA flight crew operations director Janet Kavandi as the space agency started a public search Tuesday for new astronauts.

There will be flights, but not many, with the space shuttle fleet retired. A handful of astronauts each year are launching on a Russian Soyuz spaceship to the International Space Station for six-month stays.

In about three to five years, NASA hopes to purchase trips for astronauts headed to the space station on American-built commercial rockets instead. And eventually, NASA hopes to fly astronauts in a government owned Orion capsule to an asteroid or even Mars, but those pioneering trips are more than a decade away.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/11/15/national/w123015S77.DTL&type=science

. . . and be better off than you are?

Or would you rather . . .?