Can you become an astronaut if you have a medical degree?

[akshitha135]

How do you get into research if you are interested in medicine and want to work in research with space? Can you also become an astronaut but not be involved with space missions, thanks for your answers.

 

[PeroK]

Is it an astronaut or an astrophysicist that you want to be?

 

[Vanadium 50]

Can you also become an astronaut but not be involved with space missions

An astronaut is defined as someone who goes on space missions. If you are using some sort of auto-translate software, you might want to switch to another one.

 

[akshitha135]

Can you combine a MD/PhD with a astrophysics research phd?

 

[Vanadium 50]

Where did MD/PhD come from? Where did "astronaut" go? If you want an answer, please pose a clear and complete question - one where we don't have to guess what you are talking about.

 

[Choppy]

@akshitha135
It might help if you look up the biographies of existing astronauts to get an idea of what kinds of backgrounds they have, and what they do. Several are also physicians. One example might be:
https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronauts/canadian/active/bio-david-saint-jacques.asp

You could look into a branch of medicine called aerospace medicine. See for example:
http://www.asma.org/for-students-and-residents
https://www.iaasm.org/

As for the MD/PhD, the PhD aspect tends to be related to medical science of some sort, though the specific restrictions on the PhD are likely unique to each school/program. You could probably find some program that would allow it, but the problem is that the two areas tend to be so different from each other that it would be a very long haul to get through it all. In the example above of David Saint-Jacques, it looks like he did his PhD in astrophysics first and then shifted gears completely and got into medicine.

If you're interested in way to combine interests in both medicine and physics, you could also look into a sub-field of physics called medical physics.

 

[Vanadium 50]

It might help if you look up the biographies of existing astronauts to get an idea of what kinds of backgrounds they have

I am not sure he means "astronaut", since he also says "not involved with space missions". @PeroK suggests he may mean "astrophysicist".

 

[Zap]

If you want to combine biology with NASA, I know that there are biologists who study the effects of zero gravity on the body. It sounds like pretty cool research, but also very selective.

 

[akshitha135]

Thanks I am a female.