CrashTheMexican

Hey Terry! I'm 21 years old and my dream is to be an Astronaut. I've decided that the best path I can take to do this would be to join the Air Force this year and try to become a pilot, before eventually applying at NASA. Is there anything you would recommend to a young man starting this journey? Things you had wish you had known or done differently? The biggest thing that concerns me is when I select from the variety of jobs that are available upon entering the Air Force, I imagine being any kind of aircraft mechanic, or an engineer would be the best job experience I could have before I'm a pilot, and ultimately try to get selected by NASA, but a few other jobs, such as SERE and Linguistics are very attractive to me as well. If I want to follow this dream, would you recommend that I all in on mechanics/aircraft maintenance jobs?

Thank you very much for your reply and the advice. One of these days I hope to walk in the footsteps of both you and the rest of the Astronauts that have put in the hard work and dedication to achieve what you all have. This is definitely my dream, and I intend on following it through to the end. I hope you have a great day and thanks again Col. Virts!

I know this information is rather vague, but I'm a recently graduated high school student who is currently enrolled in a community college. For most of my life I had been a great student albeit I had disliked school, and coming into college I'm realizing that this may not be the right path for me. Do you have any recommendations for a decent paying career I could take without much if any advanced schooling? Ideally I'd like to be able to make 70k or more (90-100 would be fantastic even if it was in the top percentile) down the line. I've considered different trades, but because I have no experience I'm a bit weary of taking on an apprenticeship without getting an idea of what I'd like, or which trade would be best for me and my goals. Would you recommend trades at all? If so, would you say some offer undeniably better income/potential for growth in comparison to other blue collar jobs?