The window to apply to be a NASA astronaut — a window that opens only about every four years — closes this month, on April 16. (And though I’m an Air Force pilot, I’m not a test pilot.) But I think its requirements are closing the astronaut program off from important insights from the humanities and social sciences. Of course, the requirement for astronauts to have technical training makes some intuitive sense. NASA was founded in 1958 “to provide for research into problems of flight within and outside the earth’s atmosphere.” Who better to solve flight problems than scientists and engineers?

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Persons: —, I’ve, I’m Organizations: NASA, Air Force