Space: the final career frontier

British careers guides are boldly going where no guides have gone before: with advice to graduates on how to work a job in space. "Astronaut" is one of the job titles listed in the 2010/2011 Jobfile handbook, published by VT Lifeskills. The authors admit that competition is fierce. The European Space Agency (ESA) recently recruited six astronauts from a pool of 8,400. But for the first time since space exploration began half a century ago, a Briton – helicopter pilot Timothy Peake – was among them. The UK does not fund any manned space missions but its citizens are now allowed to join European missions. Of the four previous British astronauts, three became US citizens; the other joined a Russian mission with private funding. The ESA plans to send one European to the international space station which is currently under construction in space every other year up to 2015 and beyond. It then plans exploration missions to the Moon and Mars. This month the UK Space Agency was set up to co-ordinate funding for the space and satellite industry, which supports 19,000 jobs, with a turnover of £5.8bn. Careers consultant Heather MacRae of Venture Thinking said: "Realistically, there will not be many jobs as astronauts. But there are plenty of other exciting jobs in the space industry."