Exploratory Analysis of NASA Astronauts from 1959–2016
When we are children and the world seems to be filled with infinite, endless and wondrous possibilities, we are asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. While there were many different responses such as Doctors, Firefighters, Policeman, or The President Of The United States, others wanted to become Astronauts and work for NASA. While becoming an Astronaut is no easy feat, this post is to explore those that have become Astronauts and to hopefully encourage those that are working to make their space ambitions into a reality.
We will look at the Alma Mater’s, Military Ranks, Military Branches, Military distribution, Gender distribution, the deadliest missions, most space flights, and most time spent in space.
What is the Gender distribution of the Astronauts?
The majority were/are male but females do not be discouraged!
What schools produced the most Astronauts?
As we can see the US Naval Academy & the US Airforce Academy produced the most Astronauts. Purdue University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology trailing right behind.
What were the Astronauts Undergraduate degrees?
Many Astronauts had more than one Undergraduate degrees.
What about their Graduate degrees?
Many Astronauts had more than one Graduate degrees as well.
What percentage of the Astronauts were in the Military?
Most were in the Military but many were not in the Military as well.
Which Military Branches?
It seems like the US Air Force and US Navy produce the most Astronauts.
Military Ranks?
Many of them were/are very high ranking members in the Military.
Astronauts with five or more Space Flights.
Franklin R. Chang-Diaz & Jerry L. Ross are tied for first place.
Top 20 Astronauts with the most Space Flight Hours.
Jeffrey N. Williams wins most Space Flight hours.
And Finally, Which mission was the deadliest?
Challenger and its crew of seven astronauts on STS-51L were lost on Jan. 28, 1986. Their names were Gregory B. Jarvis, S. Christa McAuliffe, Ronald E. McNair, Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, Francis R. Scobee, Michael J. Smith. Rest In Peace to all the Astronauts lost in any of the missions.
In conclusion,
If you are considering becoming an Astronaut, according to my findings, it might increase your chances and be wise to join the Military and really apply one’s self into their higher education. While Engineering, Mathematics and the Sciences are predominantly found amongst the Astronauts, I believe that NASA can find many different fields useful for their missions.
This dataset was sourced from ‘The NASA Astronaut Yearbook” in Kaggle.com.
