Pass. If this means that being an Astronaut is now open to civilians with no prior military leadership experience, being a NASA astronaut will loose its appeal to the public. Being an astronaut, and similarly a cosmonaut, used to be a niche, pioneering, and adventurous profession. You were a hero who played a key part in accomplishing some of the most awesome aerospace engineering challenges in history. The thing is, as soon as the space shuttle took off and the soviet union collapsed, being either an NASA astronaut and a Cosmonaut quickly turned into yet another mundane government job.