> The one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism. Space!

Have you heard of a man named Elon Musk? ;-)

Space is big, he can't take it all.

One planet per species IMHO

You can stay and die on this doomed planet if you want, I'll be tossing back Irish Raktajinos and enjoying my luxury space communism.

>You can stay and die on this doomed planet if you want, I'll be tossing back Irish Raktajinos and enjoying my luxury space communism.

Friend, the planet isn't doomed... just large chunks of humanity. And if you think luxury and communism go hand and hand, you need to go back and rewatch DS9 focusing less on Garak[1] and more on Rom[2] :-)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VhSm6G7cVk

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qag2bOBUVfQ

I've been told that ESA actually likes older astronaut candidates (cheaper payouts if, eg, your gametes get methylated due to some problem with rad shielding) ... but there are fitness and language requirements. No idea if they have the same "Mission Specialist" side door option for PhD's that NASA does/did?

(I was told russian was one of the required languages, but that was 15 years ago — maybe they're no longer getting rides out of Baikonur?)

I left my PHD ABD, and also I'm actually fine with my feet on the ground, but doing infosec or programming for the systems related to launch would be cool and fun if it was something long term and stable.

I don't have any issues with Russian people -- as someone who has Asperger's it can be simpler dealing with someone who's blunt and doesn't talk a lot -- but I can't pretend not to despise Putin :-)