Paulette Joins NASA

I recently went through a really painful selection process, almost like the republican primaries, and somehow, miraculously, at the end of it, I was chosen to be NASA’s next Civilian Astronaut.

I will go up in NASA Space Shuttle Challenger 2 on January 28, 2014, and I’m really excited and a little nervous about it.  The flight is scheduled on the 18th anniversary of the historic flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger to commemorate all the things that went right at the time even though not everything about the flight was successful.

I start attending the Acme School of Astronautical Learning in Detroit next week on the 18th, and this training will last the next 8 months, so it’ll end right before I have my baby and start daycare immediately after childbirth.

I didn’t ask a lot of questions about why they want me up, orbiting the earth, but I guess it has something to do with the astronauts wanting piano lessons.

And I made this chauvinistic song about America’s Civilian Space Program (CSP) and how we’re kicking the proverbial ass of the Soviet Union’s Civilian Space Program and how it’s a great source of pride for me.