Re: How long do you have to be in college to be a astronaunt?

That depends on whether you want to be a mission commander or a mission specialist.

Mission commanders and their copilots are the people who actually fly the shuttle. These days they are, to the best of my knowledge, drawn exclusively from the military. I imagine they would be expected to have at least a B.S. degree (four years of college) if not a Master's (two more). But to be a pilot, military training is the key. To pilot a shuttle you would have to have been in the military long enough to achieve the rank of Lt. Colonel or something like that. I think it is not necessary to have a Ph.D. to be a NASA pilot, but it couldn't hurt.

Mission specialists, on the other hand, are scientists, engineers or other experts that fly along on shuttle missions and handle specific parts of the mission, such as the launch of a satellite, or gathering data from a microgravity experiment. Mission specialists typically have at least one Ph.D. degree. For that, you'd have to first complete an undergraduate or Bachelor's degree (four years) and then go to graduate school for your Ph.D.. Grad school takes anywhere from about four years on up, especially if (like some astronauts) you have *multiple* Ph.D.s . Basically, you're talking about 10 years of postsecondary education here.

But don't let that throw you off. Pursue your dreams.

[Moderator's note: you can find out more about astronauts and space flight in general on this NASA page.]