Science
Best Free Data Science, Machine Learning Courses Online
Data science and machine learning have been the buzzword in the tech world for quite some time. The prospect of working with data, making clear and concise decisions, and a high payout career may seem lucrative to anyone. However, it’s not possible to become an expert in this field that easily. There are a lot of basics like statistics, programming, and analytics to cover before getting a hang of things. If all of these seem a bit too overwhelming, there are a few great foundation courses on data science and ML to get started from scratch. Check out which one best fits your needs.
Why Should You Learn Data Science and ML?
Let us ask you this, why shouldn’t you? Data science and ML holds the highest job prospect in the coming years. In fact, there are currently over 200,000 data science and ML-related jobs on LinkedIn alone. Industry leaders predict that the need for data scientists will increase by over 26% in the next 5 years. And the growth is expected to be exponential from thereon. While there are a lot of jobs at risk of becoming invalid due to automation and AI, the need for data science majors will forever be on the rise.
And if the job security wasn’t enough to generate interest, the general median salary for a data science major in the USA is around 110,000 USD which roughly translates to 95,08,182 BDT per year. Did that grab your attention? Read along about how you can get started in your data science and ML journey.
Read How to Be a Data Analyst from CSE or Non-CSE Backgrounds?
Top 9 Free Beginner’s Courses to Learn Data Science and ML
Data Science Specialization – Coursera
This course is offered by Coursera in association with John Hopkins University. The free course is a mid-tier one designed for people who already have a grasp of the basics of statistics and R. The course will follow a detailed guide on using R to clean and sift data, manage projects and publish using Github, and data acquisition. It will also entail detailed regression analysis procedures using different regression models. The approximate course duration is about 11 months.
Introduction to Machine Learning – Udacity
Machine learning is almost as complicated as its name. It combines two significantly difficult disciplines – computer science and statistics to deliver a powerful predictive mechanism that makes up the base for modern data science.
This intermediate-level course will introduce the students to the machine learning lens, data extraction process, and predictive algorithms. The approximate course duration is 10 weeks.
Read Free Online Basic Programming Courses for Beginners
Data Science Fundamentals – IBM
Who better to learn data science from than the company that made the first computer? This beginner-level course is provided by IBM in association with Cognitive Class. The main aim of this course is to initiate the students with the very basics of data, its processes, life cycle, usage, and application.
This course is part of a series of foundation courses that gradually progresses to intermediate and advanced levels. Students will also learn about different open-source data management tools. The approximate duration of the course is 10 weeks.
Introduction to Data Science – Metis
This course is a free introductory step to the data science boot camp offered by Metis. It is a small course that will be useful for beginners trying to get their head around data science. Students don't necessarily have to participate in the Bootcamp afterward, rather it’s a stepping stone to the world of data analytics.
The 5-week-long course will see students learn about data cleaning, model creation, validation, and visualization.
Read What is the Best Programming Language to Learn First?
Machine Learning with Python – Coursera
This Coursera course is supervised by IBM and is part of a series of machine learning levels. This is a beginner course that follows the integration of the commonly used programming language Python with ML.
Students will learn about model evaluation, supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and different ML algorithms. The course will take approximately 22 hours to complete.
Applied Data Science with Python Specialization – Coursera
This applied data science course is fulfilled by the University of Michigan. This is an intermediate-level course with the main focus on the application end. Students wishing to get the basics first can check out the other 4 parts of this concurrent course.
This specific course will focus on inferential statistical analysis and its implications, applied ML algorithms, and how to interpret results. The course will also focus on different data visualization techniques. The approximate course duration is 5 months.
Read Game-based Programming: Best Coding Games for Children
Data Quest
Data Quest is an online platform that is all about data science and ML. But instead of the regular courses, the platform takes a more innovative approach to data science.
Instead of having video lectures that guide the students first, the data quest starts with projects. While it may seem daunting at first, the interactive nature of the project and clear guidelines makes it easy for anyone to pick up the quirks. There are all sorts of resources available for free including paid plans.
Data Science for Everyone – DataCamp
This course is pretty much like its name. It’s a completely non-technical course focusing on the very basics of data science for absolute beginners. It starts by addressing what data science is and how it can be incorporated into modern jobs or how it benefits the big techs. It also gives an idea about how probability is related to computation and ML predictions. There aren’t any technicalities here so anyone can have a go-to to see whether data science is actually for them or not.
Read How to Get a Job in Google from Bangladesh?
Learn Data Science with R – Udemy
The main basis of data science is made up of probability and machine learning. While ML mainly works with Python, data scientists need in-depth knowledge about R to get started with probability and regression model formation.
This 10-part series from Udemy takes the students from the basics to the intermediate level of using R for data science. The course doesn’t connect the detailed dots with data management, but the students will learn much about sourcing and cleaning data for model applications.
Final Words
So far, we have shared 10 open source online courses for learning data science, data analytics and machine learning. Many people get attracted to data science just because of all the noise and prospects around it. But in reality, it's not everyone's cup of tea. But should that stop people from having a go at it? Absolutely not. Instead, these courses are a great starting point to see whether data science and ML match your passion and skill set and whether they can be a long-term career choice.
Read Top 10 In-demand Tech Skills Freshers Should Learn in 2022
US military oks prototype mobile nuclear reactor in Idaho
The U.S. Department of Defense plans to build an advanced mobile nuclear microreactor prototype at the Idaho National Laboratory in eastern Idaho.
The department late last week signed off on the Project Pele plan to build the reactor and reactor fuel outside of Idaho and then assemble and operate the reactor at the lab.
The decision follows a two-volume, 600-page environmental impact statement that includes public comments evaluating alternatives for building and operating a gas-cooled microreactor that could produce 1 to 5 megawatts of power.
“Advanced nuclear power has the potential to be a strategic game-changer for the United States, both for the (Department of Defense) and for the commercial sector,” said Jeff Waksman, program manager for Project Pele. “For it to be adopted, it must first be successfully demonstrated under real-world operating conditions.”
Also Read: Powerful US nuclear test reactor getting rare major overhaul
Officials had previously said preparing testing sites at the Idaho National Lab and then building and testing the microreactor would take about three years. The department said the project is subject to the availability of appropriations.
The department said two reactor designs are being considered, and one chosen will be announced later. The department said both designs are high-temperature gas-cooled reactors using enriched uranium for fuel.
If the project goes forward, officials said it would be the first Generation IV nuclear reactor to operate in the United States. The Defense Department said the first electricity-generating Generation IV reactor was a Chinese reactor that started up last September.
The department said it uses 30 terawatt-hours of electricity per year and more than 10 million gallons (37.9 million liters) of fuel per day, and it expects energy demands to increase with a transition to an electrical, non-tactical vehicle fleet. Thirty terawatt-hours is more energy than many small countries use in a year.
Critics of the military using small, mobile nuclear reactors have said they could pose more logistical problems and risks to troops than they solve. Another concern is that nuclear reactors in potential combat zones or foreign operating bases could become targets themselves.
Also Read: Navy captain becomes 1st woman to command US nuclear carrier
The Idaho National Laboratory is on the U.S. Department of Energy’s 890-square-mile (2,305-square-kilometer) site in high desert sagebrush steppe, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Idaho Falls. All prototype reactor testing would take place on the Energy Department site. The lab has multiple facilities to aid in building and testing the microreactor.
That demonstration of the reactor would include startup testing, moving the reactor to a new site, and testing at the second location. The second location would mimic a real-world situation by testing the reactor’s ability to respond to energy demands.
Fuel leak thwarts NASA's dress rehearsal for moon rocket
NASA's latest attempt to fuel its huge moon rocket for a countdown test was thwarted Thursday by a hazardous hydrogen leak, the latest in a series of vexing equipment trouble.
The launch team had just begun loading fuel into the core stage of the rocket when the leak cropped up. This was NASA's third shot at a dress rehearsal, a required step ahead of a test flight to the moon.
This time, the launch team managed to load some super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen into the core stage of the 30-story Space Launch System rocket, but fell far short of the full amount. Liquid hydrogen is extremely hazardous, with officials noting that the systems had been checked for leaks prior to the test.
Also read: China launches new satellite for Earth observation
Technicians deliberately left the smaller upper stage empty, after discovering a bad valve last week. The helium valve inside the upper stage cannot be replaced until the rocket is back in its hangar at Kennedy Space Center.
Two previous countdown attempts were marred by balky fans and a large hand-operated valve that workers mistakenly left closed at the pad last week.
Officials said via Twitter that they're assessing their next steps.
Also read: Researchers print 3D cardiac tissue capable of sustaining pulses for over 6 months
NASA had been targeting June for the launch debut of the 322-foot (98-meter) SLS rocket. The empty Orion capsule on top will be sent on a four- to six-week mission around the moon and back.
Astronauts will strap in for the second test flight around the moon, planned for 2024. That would be followed as early as 2025 with the first lunar landing by astronauts since 1972. NASA plans to announce the crews for these two missions this summer.
China launches new satellite for Earth observation
China launched a new Earth observation satellite from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Thursday.
The satellite, Gaofen-3 03, was launched by a Long March-4C rocket at 7:47 a.m. (Beijing Time) and has entered the planned orbit successfully.
The satellite will be networked with the orbiting Gaofen-3 and Gaofen-3 02 satellites to form a land-sea radar satellite constellation and capture reliable, stable synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images.
Also Read: Weather satellite rockets to orbit to monitor US West
These images will boast a 1-meter resolution together with a one-day revisit period, thereby improving the monitoring capabilities of China's land-sea radar satellites.
It will serve the fields of marine disaster prevention and mitigation, dynamic marine environment monitoring, marine research, environmental protection, water conservancy, agriculture and meteorology, while helping to safeguard maritime rights and interests.
The launch marks the 414th mission for the Long March series carrier rockets.
Also Read: North Korea says it tested cameras for spy satellite
Researchers print 3D cardiac tissue capable of sustaining pulses for over 6 months
Chinese researchers and their counterparts from British and Dutch universities have worked together to print a cardiac tissue that can survive in vitro and sustain pulses for more than six months.
3D bioprinting has demonstrated its advantages as one of the major methods in fabricating simple tissues, yet it still faces difficulties to generate vasculatures and preserve cell functions in complex organ production.
The researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, the University of Manchester and Delft University of Technology overcame the limitations of conventional bioprinting systems by converting a six degree-of-freedom robotic arm into a bioprinter, thus enabling cell printing on 3D complex-shaped vascular scaffolds from all directions.
The research article, recently published in the journal Bioactive Materials, stated that several layers of cells were printed on the scaffold and were co-cultured for a period of time to induce the formation of functional intercellular junctions and new capillaries between the printed cells. Thereafter, a new round of cell printing was carried out.
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The process can form a vascular network similar to the internal organs and support the long-term survival of the printed tissue and organs.
The researchers also developed an oil bath-based cell printing method to better preserve the natural functions of cells after printing. Together with a self-designed bioreactor and a repeated print-and-culture strategy, the bioprinting system is capable of generating vascularized, contractible, and long-term survived cardiac tissues.
Such bioprinting strategy mimics the in vivo organ development process and presents a promising solution for in vitro fabrication of complex organs, according to the research article.
US astronaut ends record-long spaceflight in Russian capsule
A NASA astronaut caught a Russian ride back to Earth on Wednesday after a U.S. record 355 days at the International Space Station, returning with two cosmonauts to a world torn apart by war.
Mark Vande Hei landed in a Soyuz capsule in Kazakhstan alongside the Russian Space Agency’s Pyotr Dubrov, who also spent the past year in space, and Anton Shkaplerov. Wind blew the capsule onto its side following touchdown, and the trio emerged into the late afternoon sun one by one.
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Vande Hei, the last one out, grinned and waved as he was carried to a reclining chair out in the open Kazakh steppes.
“Beautiful out here,” said Vande Hei, putting on a face mask and ballcap.
Despite escalating tensions between the U.S. and Russia over Vladimir Putin’s war with Ukraine, Vande Hei’s return followed customary procedures. A small NASA team of doctors and other staff was on hand for the touchdown and planned to return immediately to Houston with the 55-year-old astronaut.
Even before Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Vande Hei said he was avoiding the subject with his two Russian crewmates. Despite getting along “fantastically ... I’m not sure we really want to go there,” he said.
It was the first taste of gravity for Vande Hei and Dubrov since their Soyuz launch on April 9 last year. Shkaplerov joined them at the orbiting lab in October, escorting a Russian film crew up for a brief stay. To accommodate that visit, Vande Hei and Dubrov doubled the length of their stay.
Before departing the space station, Shkaplerov embraced his fellow astronauts as “my space brothers and space sister.”
“People have problem on Earth. On orbit ... we are one crew,” Shkaplerov said in a live NASA TV broadcast Tuesday. The space station is a symbol of “friendship and cooperation and ... future of exploration of space.”
The war tensions bubbled over in other areas of space with the suspension of European satellite launches on Russian rockets and the Europe-Russia Mars rover stuck on Earth for another two years.
Read:Meet the man who won a trip to space and gave it to a friend
Vande Hei surpassed NASA’s previous record for the longest single spaceflight by 15 days. Dubrov moved into Russia’s top five, well short of the 437-day, 17-hour marathon by a cosmonaut-physician aboard the 1990s Mir space station that remains the world record.
“Broken records mean we’re making progress,” said NASA’s previous space endurance champ, retired astronaut Scott Kelly, whose 340-day mission ended in 2016.
Like Kelly, Vande Hei underwent medical testing during his long stay to further NASA’s quest to get astronauts back to the moon and on to Mars. He said daily meditation helped him cope during the mission, twice as long as his first station stint four years earlier.
“I’ve had an indoor job 24-7 for almost a year so I am looking forward to being outside no matter what kind of weather,” Vande Hei said in a recent series of NASA videos. As for food, he’s looking forward to making a cup of coffee for himself and wife Julie, and digging into guacamole and chips.
Remaining on board: Three Russians who arrived two weeks ago and three Americans and one German, who have been aboard since November. Their replacements are due in three weeks via SpaceX. Next week, SpaceX will fly three rich businessmen and their ex-astronaut escort to the station for a weeklong visit arranged by the private Axiom Space.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX began transporting NASA astronauts to the station in 2020, nine years after the shuttle program ended. During that gap, Russia offered the lone taxi service, with NASA shelling out tens of millions of dollars per Soyuz seat. Vande Hei’s ride was part of a barter exchange with Houston-based Axiom.
10 Greatest Female Scientists of All Time
If you are asked who are the greatest scientists of all time? Probably your answer will be Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, or other big names. No doubt those scientists made remarkable discoveries and changed how we understand the world. But women have played a key role in humanity’s scientific advancement though they have faced systemic barriers and gender discrimination throughout history. Let's learn about women's accomplishments and celebrate their scientific achievements in this March-Women's History month.
10 Pioneering Women of History in Science
Ada Lovelace (Dec. 10, 1815-Nov. 27, 1852), Mathematician
Ada Lovelace was an English mathematician and writer. She was the only child of poet Lord Byron and mathematician Lady Byron and was born in England. Her father separated from her mother after a few months of her birth.
Coronavirus can destroy the placenta and lead to stillbirths
New research suggests the coronavirus can invade and destroy the placenta and lead to stillbirths in infected women.
It’s an uncommon outcome for any pregnancy but women with COVID-19 face an elevated risk. Authorities believe vaccination can help prevent these cases.
Researchers in 12 countries, including the United States, analyzed placental and autopsy tissue from 64 stillbirths and four newborns who died shortly after birth. The cases all involved unvaccinated women who had COVID-19 during their pregnancy.
The study bolsters evidence from small case reports and it confirms that placenta damage rather than an infection of the fetus is the likely cause of many COVID-19-related stillbirths, said Dr. Jeffery Goldstein, a pathologist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
He was not involved in the study, which was published Thursday in Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine.
Also read: Can you get long COVID after an infection with omicron?
Previous evidence suggests the chances of stillbirth are higher than usual for pregnant women with COVID-19, particularly from the delta variant. Vaccination recommendations include pregnant women and note their higher risk for complications when infected.
Lead author Dr. David Schwartz, an Atlanta pathologist, said other infections can infiltrate the placenta and cause stillbirth, typically by infecting and damaging the fetus. A recent example is Zika virus.
He and his colleagues wanted to see if that was the case with stillbirths in women with COVID-19. But what they found was almost the opposite: it was the placenta that was infected and extensively destroyed.
“Many of these cases had over 90% of the placenta destroyed — very scary,” said Schwartz.
Normal placenta tissue is a healthy reddish hue and spongy. The specimens they studied were stiff, with dark discolorations of dead tissue. While other infections can sometimes damage the placenta, Schwartz said he’d never seen them cause such consistent, extensive destruction.
The placenta is an organ that forms and attaches to the womb during pregnancy. It connects with the umbilical cord, providing oxygen and nourishment from the mother’s bloodstream.
The virus likely reached the placenta through the bloodstream, attaching to susceptible cells and causing protein deposits and an unusual form of inflammation that blocked blood flow and oxygen. That in turn led to placenta tissue death and suffocation, the researchers said.
Also read: India logs 71,365 new COVID-19 cases, total rises to 42,410,976
Coronavirus was also detected in some of the fetuses, but evidence of suffocation in the womb points to placenta damage as the more likely cause of death, they said.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in November found that among pregnant U.S. women infected with COVID-19, about 1 in 80 deliveries was a stillbirth — the loss of a fetus anytime after 20 weeks. That’s compared with 1 in 155 among uninfected women.
The study stillbirths occurred on average at 30 weeks; normal pregnancies last about 40 weeks.
High blood pressure, certain chronic illnesses and fetal abnormalities are among conditions that can increase chances for stillbirths, including in women with COVID-19.
It is unclear whether omicron infections also increase chances for stillbirths; the study was done before that highly infectious variant emerged.
How Can Artificial Intelligence Improve Healthcare?
Artificial Intelligence has been playing an important role in the globe over the last several decades. Artificial intelligence algorithms are used to enhance the user experience while logging into social media, e-mail, and online retail platforms. Because the risk of Artificial Intelligence implementation could transcend human jobs and abilities, there is a lot of study going on to see how AI might help with healthcare judgments, support human judgment, and boost treatment efficiency.
Growing Impact of AI in Healthcare Industry
AI in healthcare brings on a variety of benefits. AI often makes use of an online database that gives physicians and practitioners access to hundreds of diagnostic materials. Because physicians have a thorough understanding of their area and are upgraded based on current research, AI makes it faster to get these results that can be demonstrated with their clinical expertise.
Many people have become concerned that artificial intelligence will someday replace or reduce the necessity for human doctors, particularly in the clinical context. However, new studies and statistics suggest that rather than reducing physician necessity, this tool will likely help and enhance clinical diagnoses and decision making.
Read: How to Become an Astronaut ?
Many times, patients exhibit many symptoms that might be linked to a variety of disorders based on both hereditary and physical traits, causing a diagnosis to be delayed. AI benefits a practitioner not only in terms of efficiency, but it also gives quantitative and qualitative data based on input feedback, enhancing accuracy in diagnosis, treatment planning, and result prediction.
Because AI can "learn" from data, it has the potential to enhance accuracy depending on feedback replies. Many back-end database sources, as well as information from practitioners, physicians, and research institutes, are included in this feedback.
Assembled data is made up of a variety of medical notes, electronic recordings from medical equipment, laboratory imaging, physical exams, and demographic information. Practitioners have almost infinite resources to enhance their therapeutic skills because of this collection of constantly updated knowledge.
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Keeping Health Well
One of AI's significant advantages is that it helps people stay in good shape and health. So people don't need to call for a doctor as frequently, and if at all. People are already benefiting from the usage of AI and the Internet of Medical Things in health applications.
Many individuals have been encouraged to adopt the habits by using different technologies, tools and apps to aid in the proper maintenance of a healthy lifestyle. It also gives customers control over their health.
Also, AI improves healthcare providers' capacity to better perceive the regular patterns of cared individuals, allowing them to give greater feedback and support to help them remain healthy.
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Early end Effective Detection
AI is being used to diagnose illnesses more precisely in their early stages. According to research, a large percentage of mammograms provide misleading findings. AI is allowing mammograms to be reviewed and translated 30 times quicker with 99% accuracy, decreasing the need for unneeded biopsies.
Consumer wearables are also being used in conjunction with AI to monitor and diagnose early-stage cardiac disease, allowing physicians and other caregivers to monitor and detect life-threatening incidents at earlier, more curable stages.
Systemic Diagnosis
Watson for Health from IBM is a digital tool that enables healthcare businesses to use cognitive technologies to access massive volumes of health data and improve diagnostic accuracy. Watson can examine and retain exponentially more medical knowledge than any person — every medical article, symptom, and case study of therapy and reaction worldwide.
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Different organizations collaborate with physicians, academics, and critical patients to address practical healthcare issues. The approach blends machine learning, artificial intelligence and neuroscience in order to incorporate sophisticated general-purpose cognitive algorithms into human neural networks that simulate the human brain.
Proper Decision Making
Improving treatment involves aligning massive health data with appropriate and timely judgments, and predictive yet near-perfect analytics can both enhance clinical decision-making and following actions and prioritize administrative duties.
Using different pattern recognition techniques to identify patients at risk of getting a disorder – or having one worsen – as a result of lifestyle, environmental, genetic, or other variables is another area where AI is gaining traction in healthcare.
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Unachievable Treatment
Apart from scanning records to assist providers in identifying chronically ill patients at risk of adverse episodes, AI can assist clinicians in taking a more comprehensive comprehension of disease management, better-coordinating care plans, and assisting patients in managing and adhering to their long-term treatment regimens.
For more than three decades, robots have been utilized in medicine. They vary in complexity from small laboratory robots to very complicated surgical robots capable of assisting a human surgeon or doing surgeries on their own. They are also utilized in hospitals and laboratories for repetitive jobs, rehabilitation, therapy, and to assist persons with chronic diseases.
The Necessities of Life Care Becomes Obsolete
An average human has a longer living capacity than past generations, and as we near the end of our lives, we are dying differently and more slowly from illnesses such as dementia, heart failure, and osteoporosis. Additionally, it is a stage of life that is often marked by loneliness.
Read Top 10 Greatest Science Breakthroughs of 2021
Robots possess the potential to transform end-of-life care by enabling patients to stay independent for longer periods of time and so lowering the need for hospitalization and care facilities. AI, in conjunction with developments in humanoid design, enables robots to go even farther and engage in 'conversations' and other social activities with humans, therefore maintaining the sharpness of aging brains.
Conclusion
The largest hurdle for AI in healthcare is not determining if the technologies will be sufficiently competent to be beneficial but rather guaranteeing their widespread acceptance in everyday clinical practice. Clinicians may eventually gravitate toward work requiring unique human abilities, activities requiring the greatest degree of cognitive function. Perhaps the only healthcare practitioners who will miss out on AI's potential are people who refuse to collaborate with it.
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How to Become an Astronaut?
Being an astronaut is an ambition you should not set out to achieve without first knowing the hard work needed. It takes years of education and training before you can even apply to become an astronaut. Once you are accepted into the program, you will go through rigorous classes that teach engineering, biology, chemistry, geology, math, and physics. It also takes physical strength to be an astronaut; there is no other way around it. If you are interested in becoming an astronaut, keep reading.
What does astronaut mean?
Astronaut is an English word that came from a Greek word which means ‘Star Sailor.’ And naturally, we can call astronauts the star sailors. Because all their work is in the land of the stars, they have to go on a ship (spaceship) and do research there.
How to become an astronaut?
It is a question that has been asked by many over the years. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to become an astronaut as you need to go through some steps. You need to be in excellent shape, have a college degree in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), and pass a rigorous selection process. There are many different ways to prepare for a career as an astronaut, but the ultimate goal is the same. Hence, the requirements remain the same.
Read Meet the man who won a trip to space and gave it to a friend
When it comes to recruiting astronauts, NASA doesn’t employ a massive workforce. At present NASA has 48 active astronauts and so far, around 600 people went to space in the last 50 years. So, you can understand how hard it is to land your career as an astronaut.
Anyone, civilian or military, can apply to become an astronaut. However, some qualifications are required to apply. These are described one by one below:
Educational requirement
First of all, the person has to be a US citizen. In the case of education, NASA is very strict and the person should have a master’s degree with an excellent result in a STEM field. The degree can be in engineering, computer science, biological science, mathematics, or physical science. Candidates may also possess a Ph.D. degree in the related field, a completed doctor of medicine or medical degree in doctor of osteopathic, or completion of a nationally recognized test pilot school program.
Read New space telescope reaches final stop million miles out
Physical fitness
In addition to a strong educational background, your physical fitness should be NASA standard. Your height cannot be too short or too high. The candidate must stand between 5’2” and 6’3” in height which is between 62 and 75 inches.
For eyesight, 20/20 vision is needed and this cannot exceed 140/90 in the normal sitting position. The prospective astronauts should also pass the swimming test. The selected candidate will have to go through military water survival training and the person will also need scuba certification. Therefore, strong swimming skills are also necessary.
Flight experience
According to NASA, the candidate needs to have professional flight test experience, which will help them to launch the aircraft. The person might require 1,000 hours of jet aircraft pilot-in-command time. However, commercial pilots may also be eligible to apply if they have 1,500 hours of flight time.
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Selection process and Training
All civilian and military candidates have to go through a week-long process, where they have to face personal interviews, medical examinations, orientations.
Training
The selected applicants enter into an agreement with the organization concerned. (In the case of NASA, it is the astronaut's office at the Johnson Space Station in Houston, Texas.) This was followed by two years of continuous training. It teaches everything about the space exploration mission. Military candidates, on the other hand, continue to improve their experience with NASA aircraft.
Candidates have to pass the swimming test in the first month of the training. They have to finish the swimming syllabus before starting the flying syllabus. They also need to be SCUBA qualified for spacewalk training. SCUBA is an underwater swimming pool with a supply of compressed air. Candidates have to swim 3 times in a 25-meter-long pool without stopping.
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Then they have to do the same thing again wearing spacesuits and tennis suits; However, in the second case, there is no set time for completion of the work. Candidates are exposed to high and low atmospheric pressure in a high chamber so that they can get an idea of the problems that may arise in such situations and apply them in the mission.
The candidates are then made to feel artificial weightlessness on a jet aircraft, which lasts about 20 seconds. And the process continues about 40 times a day for 20 seconds each time. Further, NASA uses Zero G flight to give a feel of the actual weightlessness.
Training in Zero G flight training
And the selection of astronauts for space missions is based on the successful completion of these tests or training. However, successful completion of some other training such as International Space Station systems training, Russian Language training, Extravehicular Activity skills training, Aircraft Flight readiness training, and Robotics skills training is required for final selection. Civilian candidates who cannot be selected as astronauts are appointed to the respective institutions according to their qualifications, subject to vacancies.
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Special training
After being finally selected, the astronauts have to face the most difficult training. Spacecraft trainers teach them every detail of Aircraft Systems including operating spacecraft. So that they can come over any kind of problem on the mission.
Challenges faced by the Astronauts
Astronauts in space have to deal with a number of problems. Lack of gravity can cause headaches, nausea, and loss of appetite. Many people sometimes feel as if a subatomic bullet is coming through their eyeballs.
Some people feel that there is an abnormal flash of light coming out of their eyes. None of this is good for the human eye. About three-quarters of astronauts have suffered eye problems after the mission.
Read Meet the man who won a trip to space and gave it to a friend
Due to the absence of gravitational force, it is sometimes the case that some of the astronauts continue to feel that their body is leaning forward. The astronaut may not even feel exactly where his limbs are. About half the astronauts suffer from this problem; This is called "Space Adaptation Syndrome."
Career prospects and salary
No matter how you prepare, it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to become an astronaut. But, if you have the passion and determination, then you can achieve your dream of becoming an astronaut!
The NASA astronauts make around $24,079 to $640,817 a year which is around BDT 26 lakhs to BDT 5.5 crore a year. The median salary is $116,165 equivalent to BDT 99 lakhs. However, the top 86% of NASA astronauts make $640,817 or BDT 5.5 crore a year.
Read Four station astronauts catch ride with SpaceX back home
Final Words
Many people have a misguided view of astronauts as being just pilots that have been lucky enough to have been chosen for their dream job. Hopefully, this article will work as a brief guide for people who want to be astronauts.