A Recruitment Process That’s Out of This World: How NASA Selects Astronauts

This post is based on a recent Redefining Work podcast with Lars Schmidt and NASA's April Jordan. You can listen to the full episode here.

NASA is pretty clear about the allure of a diverse workforce. Their take: Diversity drives innovation — some bold words for an agency that’s about as innovative as they come. 

But the agency isn’t just paying lip service to inclusive hiring practices. In November 2024, Christina Hammock and Victor Glover will become the first woman and first African American to embark on a lunar mission as part of the four-person Artemis II crew.

“Our goal is always to select a crew that is representative of our nation,” says April Jordan, the manager of astronaut selection at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and deputy HR director for NASA’s West Coast operations. April discussed the astronaut recruitment process at length recently on the podcast Redefining Work that is hosted by Lars Schmidt. 

While assembling a diverse team of astronauts may seem par for the course for the agency’s recruiters, NASA’s hiring practices may just be in a galaxy of their own.

NASA employs a team-centric approach to hiring

NASA takes a team approach to hiring, meaning they recruit small groups of new astronauts at a time. “We are selecting a team, not just a couple of individuals who would make good astronauts,” April says. Among their considerations: The diversity of the team as well as how well the individuals on the team work together.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is winnowing the pool of applicants down. Imagine sifting through more than 18,000 applications to come up with a mere 12 hires.  

That’s what happened when NASA selected its 2017 class of astronauts, April shares. The year 2021 wasn’t much different when 10 astronauts made the cut out of more than 12,000 applicants. Since 1978, 350 astronauts have been selected from a pool of more than 77,000 hopefuls.

So why is the role of astronaut such a competitive one to fill?

One reason could be because NASA doesn’t hire astronauts very often. As a matter of fact, NASA only brings on new astronauts every four years or so, April says, since people tend to stay with the agency for their entire careers. 

Another reason: The idea of being an astronaut has captivated many of us since childhood, with nearly nine out of 10 children between the ages of 8 and 12 professing an interest in space exploration, according to one survey.

The better question may be how does NASA get from a pool of thousands to a dozen or so ideal candidates? Their elaborate process leaves nothing to chance.

The agency even sets a high bar with its minimum requirements

April likens the recruitment process to a funnel. While a lot of applicants submit their resumes, some candidates are weeded out of the recruitment process each step of the way.

An astronaut rating panel sifts through the mountains of applications, eliminating those from consideration who don’t have the qualifications for the job. First, applicants must meet the technical requirements for the position. Candidates must have a master’s degree in a science, engineering, or math field and a minimum of two years of relevant professional experience.

They also are evaluated to identify whether they possess certain soft skills such as leadership, followership, agility, and the ability to react quickly under pressure, April says.

Since astronauts will be expected to perform spacewalks and withstand long duration missions, candidates also have to pass a physical, along with psychological assessments to move forward in the process. 

At that point, the funnel narrows and the candidates that make it through move on to be evaluated by an astronaut selection board, which interviews candidates and checks references. 

Those that continue to perform well travel to Houston for a couple more rounds of interviews and exercises designed to showcase strengths and weaknesses. “They are there from four days to a week,” April says. “We plan activities that immerse them in what they might experience if they were an astronaut.”

NASA assesses how candidates respond to real-life scenarios

That’s where the recruitment process really gets interesting. Have you ever asked a candidate how comfortable they are working in a team environment? Or perhaps you’ve instructed a candidate to share how they’ve handled a conflict with another member on their team. While a NASA recruiter might ask those questions, they wouldn’t just take the candidate’s word for it.

“One of the most important qualifications we’re looking for is the ability to be a good teammate in a crew situation,” says Anne Roemer, NASA Johnson Space Center astronaut selection manager. “We actually put candidates through situational experiences where we’re trying to assess their ability to be a good team member.”

April also points to the situational exercises as one of the things that sets NASA’s hiring process apart and shares a couple of scenarios an applicant might face. 

• An applicant might be chosen to be team leader for an exercise and then suddenly be asked to give up that role and defer to a different candidate. How does each person respond to the change in roles?
• An applicant might be given 30 minutes to complete an assignment and midway through, the time allotted to complete the task would be cut in half. Does the candidate stay calm or buckle under the stress?

“Basically, they’re in a fishbowl for that time that they’re with us, which is really interesting to watch,” April says. While it may be nerve-wracking to the candidates, it serves a purpose. “We are able to observe and dig in,” she adds, “and see people’s behaviors around the nontechnical competencies.”

By watching the candidates engage in various activities, the selection board can learn how candidates respond in different real-world scenarios. “We generate hundreds of data points on each candidate," April says. "From that we are able to recommend a team of astronauts.”

The application process takes about two years from start to finish. While it’s intense, it provides the results that NASA is looking for. 

“If anyone’s paid attention to what the NASA workforce has looked like over the last 60 years, there is a dramatic change with the level of diversity that we have,” April says. Indeed, the first astronauts in the 1960s were all all white men; the first African American in space — Guion Bluford — didn’t get there until 1983. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, also in 1983.

Now, 40 years later, April can’t help but feel pride about the progress NASA has made as far as diversity is concerned.

“There’s a commitment that NASA has to diversity and inclusion and equity,” she says. “The way you operationalize that is you bring new and different voices into the room. That’s me as a Black woman coming into this position, and that’s Victor as the first Black astronaut that will go to the moon and Christina as the first woman who will go to the moon. There’s a lot of pride in being part of an agency that is taking steps in the direction that they say they want to take steps in.”

Final thoughts

Even if a business does not have thousands of applicants beating down its doors, there is much that can be learned from the astronaut recruitment process. Among the lessons:

Be clear about what you’re looking for. Know what skills and strengths your ideal candidate should possess. Then you can design a recruitment process that tests whether candidates have those qualities.

Be willing to look beyond the resume. While a resume can offer a brief summary of a candidate’s history, behavioral assessments can shed light on who that candidate is today. Being able to see how a candidate responds to real-world situations can help you predict how the candidate will respond to challenges in the workplace.

Consider the overall team. Don’t look at each candidate in a vacuum. Consider how they might affect the diversity, effectiveness, and well-being of the entire team.