Hi! I'm Jasmine. I'm 16, I'm a sophomore, and I'm going to be an astronaut.

Not "I want to be." I'm going to be. My mom says I've been saying it since I was four and saw a shuttle launch on TV. I have a poster of the Earth from Apollo 17 over my bed and a countdown calendar on my closet door. Some people think it's a phase. It has been a twelve year phase so far, so I think we can stop calling it that.

I made this page so I could keep track of my plan, and because when I went looking for pages by other kids who want to do this, I couldn't find any. So if you're one, e-mail me! We can be crew.

Here it is. I've been working on it since eighth grade. My guidance counselor has a copy.

Also on the list: keep my grades up (3.9 right now, the B was in English and I'm still mad about it), keep running cross country because astronauts have to be in shape, and get my eyes checked every year because vision requirements are strict and I want to know early.

Best. Week. Of. My. Life.

Space Camp is at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. My grandma paid for half as my birthday present and I paid the rest from two summers of babysitting. For high school kids it's the Advanced Space Academy, so it's more serious than the little kids' camp: more classroom time, more math, and you do simulated missions where everybody has a real job.

Things I did:

• Rode the Multi-Axis Trainer. It spins you in three directions at once. I did NOT get sick. Two boys did. I'm just saying.
• Did a simulated shuttle mission where I was the Commander. We had an "engine failure" scripted in during ascent and I had to call an abort. We got everybody back. My hands were shaking afterward. It was the best feeling ever.
• Did a second mission as a mission specialist and did a simulated spacewalk on the rig that takes most of your weight off so you feel like you're floating.
• Scuba training in the Underwater Astronaut Trainer tank. Neutral buoyancy is the closest thing to weightlessness you can get without an airplane.
• Saw the Saturn V up close. It's laid out on its side and it is longer than a football field. You can't understand how big it is from pictures. People RODE that.
• Ate freeze-dried ice cream. Overrated. But I ate it.

I have a whole roll of pictures but the film is still at the drugstore because I keep forgetting to pick it up. When I get it back and get Dad to borrow the scanner from work, they'll go here.

The counselors were college students in engineering and they told me the same thing my guidance counselor did: take the math. Everything goes back to the math.

I get asked this a lot, and people have some weird ideas (no, you don't get "drafted," and no, you don't have to be in the military, although lots are). Here's what I've learned from reading everything I could find. This is the general picture, and it's for the U.S. program.

• You need a college degree first. A bachelor's degree in engineering, a physical science, a biological science, or math. Not "communications." Not "pre-law." Science or math.
• Then you need experience. There are two main kinds of astronaut. Pilot astronauts fly the shuttle and need a lot of hours as pilot-in-command of jets, which mostly means military test pilots. Mission specialists do the science, the spacewalks, and the robot arm, and they need at least three years of related professional experience after their degree, though an advanced degree can count toward that. That's why my plan has Stage 5 in it. You can't apply the day you graduate.
• Then you apply. NASA takes applications and picks a new class every couple of years. Thousands apply. They pick a couple dozen. That's not to scare you, it's just so you know you have to be really, really good at something, not just really enthusiastic (although I am also that).
• Then you're a candidate, not an astronaut. About two years of training at Johnson Space Center in Houston before you're even eligible for a flight assignment.
• You need to pass a physical. Height limits, vision, blood pressure. Take care of yourself now.

So: degree, experience, apply, train, wait. It's a long road. That's okay. I'm sixteen. I have time. And honestly even if I never get picked, I'll be an engineer who can fly a plane, and that's a pretty great backup plan.

A countdown, because it's a space page. These are people who did it. Some of them are the reason I know I can.

5... John Glenn. First American to orbit the Earth, in 1962, in Friendship 7. Then, last October (STS-95), he went back up at age 77. Seventy-seven! If he can do it at 77, I can do it at 30.

4... Dr. Mae Jemison. First African American woman in space, on Endeavour, September 1992 (STS-47). She's a medical doctor AND an engineer AND she was in the Peace Corps, and she left NASA to start her own company. She proves you don't have to be one thing.

3... Dr. Sally Ride. First American woman in space, June 1983, on Challenger (STS-7). She had a Ph.D. in physics. When I told my little cousin that there was a time when no American woman had ever been to space, she didn't believe me. That's because of Sally Ride.

2... Col. Eileen Collins. This July (STS-93, Columbia) she became the first woman to command a space shuttle mission. Her crew deployed the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which is a huge telescope that sees X-rays from things like black holes. She was already the first woman to pilot the shuttle back in 1995. She was an Air Force pilot and a test pilot first, and she flew the whole way up the ladder I'm trying to climb. I watched the launch on TV at 12:31 in the morning (it was a night launch) and I cried. I'm not embarrassed.

1... My mom. Not an astronaut. But she drove me eleven hours to Huntsville and back and never once said "are you sure about this." Every astronaut's biography has a parent like that in it somewhere.

LIFTOFF.

• The International Space Station has two pieces up there now: Zarya (launched November 1998) and Unity (attached by Endeavour that December). More modules are coming. By the time I'm eligible, there will be a whole station to go to. That's the part that keeps me going when Geometry proofs get stupid.
• Chandra (see Eileen Collins above) sent back its first images in August. Cassiopeia A, a supernova remnant. Go look at it if you can find a picture. It looks like a firework.
• The Cassini probe flew past Earth in August on its way to Saturn. It won't get there until 2004. I'll be in college. I'm going to be checking on it.

Other pages I like: Shuttle Launch Viewing Guide (I am going to see a launch in person someday, and this is how), Steve's Model Rocketry Page, Skywatch: Satellites You Can See, My Backyard Observatory, and Women in Science: A Reading List.