A space-oriented career can and should provide students with skills that make them highly employable in a variety of jobs that are not directly related to space. Not everyone who explores space will need to be a rocket scientist. In addition, while becoming an astronaut is still something that is exceptionally hard to do, the day is almost at hand where almost anyone can and will be able to fly into space. Becoming an astronaut or “rocket scientist” will soon become something that any child can consider – and achieve.
Grab a pile of science fiction books that depict the future in space. Then ask yourself how many of the characters in these future worlds are high performance fighter pilots, flight surgeons, or aerospace engineers. Some will be, to be certain. But who is going to actually build moon bases? Put fuel into rockets? Drive the machines that mine the Moon? Write the instruction manuals and software? In the future, “The Right Stuff” is something that everyone everyone is going to have.
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