Space station astronauts give huge trash can the boot

NASA has received a record 18,300 resumes from people keen on becoming astronauts, the U.S. space agency said Friday. NASA opened up those applications to the general public back in December, and more than 18,300 people applied before Thursday’s deadline.

A pair of NASA astronauts have released a capsule loaded with 1.5 tonnes of trash.

The spaceship, which was named SS Deke Slayton II after one of Nasa’s original astronauts, will burn up in the atmosphere during re-entry.

NASA’s Mission Control Center will maneuver Cygnus into place and Expedition 46 robotic arm operators Scott Kelly and Tim Kopra of NASA will give the command for its 7:25 a.m. release.

During the next 18 months, NASA will review the applications and then conduct a multi-part interview process with the most highly qualified candidates.

“The deorbit burn and re-entry of Cygnus will not air on NASA TV”, NASA says, somewhat disappointingly.

“We have our work cut out for us with this many applications”, said Brian Kelly, director of Flight Operations Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Since Kelly’s deployment to the International Space Station in March of past year (along with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko), he has documented his many trips around our planet with lovely photography.

Among the various assignments the chosen few could be assigned to could include the Orion program that would include a journey to Mars, the International Space Station and the two American-made commercial spacecraft now in development – Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner or the SpaceX Crew Dragon.

United States space agency NASA are being overwhelmed with job applications. “I look forward to meeting the men and women talented enough to rise to the top of what is always a pool of incredible applicants”. If that’s the case, it’s not clear what human missions NASA would have beyond low-Earth orbit before about 2030.