Astronauts launch into new frontiers as shuttle ends

What happens when you have the right stuff at the wrong time?

Members of NASA's astronaut corps have been asking just that, now that the space-shuttle program is ending and their odds of flying anywhere good anytime soon are getting smaller. The Endeavour is scheduled to launch this week, and the Atlantis is supposed to fly the last shuttle mission in June — and all the seats are spoken for.

"Morale is pretty low," said Leroy Chiao, a former astronaut who works for a company that wants to offer space flights for tourists. "This is a time of great uncertainty."

Under President Obama, NASA's human spaceflight program has been curtailed. The Ares I and Constellation programs, which were meant to succeed the space shuttles and take astronauts to the moon, were canceled, and NASA is instead hiring outside companies to devise alternatives.

So when the Obama family heads to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week to sit with Gabrielle Giffords, the injured Arizona congresswoman, as she watches her husband, Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, take off for the international space station, it will be one of the last spectacles of its kind for a while. During the next few years, U.S. astronauts will be competing for a handful of slots on the international space station, flying there on Russian Soyuz capsules.

"We hope we will overcome this hurdle and continue to explore," said Peggy Whitson, head of NASA's astronaut office, whose job includes selecting the astronauts who will fly each space mission.

While people's spirits are a little down, she said, "We'll have to see; NASA has gone through different phases like this before."

The current situation may not dampen the career aspirations of the elementary-school set, but last year, 20 astronauts left NASA's active-duty roster; today, 61 remain, down from a peak of about 150 in 2000. NASA then was gearing up to staff the space station and the shuttles that supplied it.

The shift has made a big difference to people such as John Grunsfeld, the Dr. Fix-It of the Hubble Space Telescope, who has flown five missions for NASA. After his last flight, in May 2009, he asked Whitson about his chances of returning to space.

"She was honest," Grunsfeld said. "Slim to none."

If Whitson had dangled even a small chance at a plum assignment, such as commanding the space station, "I probably would have stayed," said Grunsfeld, 52. But she did not.

So in January 2010, he left NASA to become deputy director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which operates the Hubble.

Another astronaut for whom the new realities presented a problem was Navy Capt. Scott Altman, who has flown four missions for NASA. But at 6-foot-4, he does not fit into a Soyuz capsule.

After his last shuttle flight in 2009, Altman, 51, saw the writing on the wall. As he wrestled with the decision over whether to leave NASA, the Obama administration made the decision to scrap Constellation and Ares I. He said last August that he would depart.

Leaving NASA "was the right decision," Altman said, but "there are some regrets from time to time." He works for ASRC Research and Technology Solutions in Maryland, which does engineering work for NASA and other federal agencies.

NASA will still be hiring astronauts, though not people of Altman's vintage. In the next year or two, as more people leave or retire, the agency will recruit a new class of six to 12 astronauts, Whitson said. If NASA decides to reduce tours of duty at the space station from six months to four, that would mean a need for even more astronauts.

"We briefed the entire office on what to expect," said Whitson, who is also an astronaut.

Meanwhile, opportunities for astronauts outside of NASA are small but growing.

Virgin Galactic, part of Richard Branson's empire, is seeking three space pilots for its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, which may begin space-tourism trips next year. While SpaceShipTwo will take suborbital hops that provide only a few minutes of weightlessness, other companies — such as Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies, better known as SpaceX — are developing spacecraft that will be able to fly to the space station and elsewhere.

Garrett Reisman, who joined the astronaut corps in 1998, left NASA last month for SpaceX, which was founded by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk. Reisman had logged more than three months in space and done work on the space station's robotic arm.

"Being an astronaut is the coolest job ever," said Reisman, 43. "It was very, very difficult to voluntarily leave."

If Reisman had stayed at NASA, he would have had a chance to fly again, but he decided to move on. Now he is working on a rocket (the Falcon 9) and a spacecraft (the Dragon) that are meant to take passengers and cargo to the space station.

"It's an engineer's dream to design a spaceship," he said. "To me, it seems like we're on the verge of a golden age of spaceflight; that's where I wanted to be."

For every astronaut who quits NASA because of age or a lack of opportunity, there are young people aspiring to fill their shoes.

The job is still as romantic as the standards are stringent. According to NASA's website, astronaut candidates must be able to swim three lengths of a pool in a flight suit and tennis shoes; an advanced degree in science or math is a plus.

The requirements are stricter for people who want to work in the space station: you must speak Russian, know robotics, be trained for spacewalks and be healthy enough to spend six months in space.

This formidable checklist has helped NASA nudge some astronauts aside. But it has not dulled anyone's memories.

"Being in space is like being someplace magic," said Air Force Col. Pamela Ann Melroy, the second female astronaut to command a shuttle mission. She left NASA in 2009, knowing there would be intense jockeying by astronauts seeking to command one of the few remaining flights.

"I didn't really want to get into situation where I was hanging around hoping that I would get one of them," she said.

Melroy remains wistful about the lost prospect of flying on the Ares I. "That would have been a hoot," she said.