Dust off those childhood dreams: NASA is now accepting astronaut applications for the upcoming Mars mission.
No doubt, despite the stringent requirements, they’ll be inundated with applications from hundreds, make that thousands, of unqualified people who haven’t seen Gravity and think space travel is as easy as booking a flight on Jet Blue. It's not. For starters, the baggage fees on the Mars trip are much steeper.
I think if NASA wants to thin the herd down to uniquely qualified candidates, the one place they should definitely start recruiting from is ad agencies. Here’s why:
Creative people are used to keeping themselves amused during long assignments that seem like they’ll never end – and often times never do.
Agency people know how to subsist on to two-day old bagels, cold pizza and pumpkin muffins so hard you could slay Goliath with them. Dehydrated, freeze-dried, bite-sized foods coated with gelatin would be like dinner at Morton’s.
The part about wearing a suit they’re uncomfortable in, even for a short time, is something they’ve done before. And sadly, peeing in that suit isn’t anything new either.
Experience being trapped in a small space with three other people you have to pretend to like? Check.
Having no choice but to accept and make course corrections from nameless, faceless voices on the other end of a speaker is something creative people do all the time.
Once there, agency people have all the knuckles and know-how needed to make a great commercial to recruit future astronauts for subsequent missions. The toughest part will be going without a trendy restaurant with an outdoor patio for lunch.
Finally, agency people will give the Red Planet a short, memorable, meaningful tagline that can be used on t-shirts, mugs and banner ads no one clicks on.
No doubt with agency people steering the ship, NASA will have the right people for the job.
As long as the job doesn't start before 10 a.m.
