You're floating 240 miles above Earth. You just completed a spacewalk repairing a $150 billion space station. You're operating equipment worth more than most Fortune 500 companies.
Your paycheck? $103,225.
That's right. NASA astronauts start at GS-12, Step 1 on the federal pay scale. Same system that pays park rangers and IRS auditors. After years of grueling training, a master's degree in STEM, and passing some of the most intense medical screenings on the planet, new astronauts make what a mid-level product manager at a tech startup pulls in.
Even at the top of the scale, a GS-13, Step 10 astronaut caps out at $159,575. In Houston.
The twist? NASA gets 12,000 applicants for every astronaut class. They select about 10. That's a 0.08% acceptance rate.
People are literally fighting to work one of the most dangerous jobs in existence for federal government wages.
by JS
for the AdAI Ed. Team
