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Erin Overcash (AeroEngr’14, MS’17) is an aerospace engineer, U.S. Navy pilot, and Ìý

An alumna of the ³Ô¹ÏÍø of Colorado Boulder and Kentucky native, Overcash was selected as one of 10 astronaut candidates from over 8,000 applications received for their Astronaut Class of 2025.Ìý

In September, she began a two-year NASA training program to become eligible for space flight assignments. She discusses her experience so far and personal background below:

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What has the NASA training been like so far?

Right after the public announcement, we immediately started astronaut candidate training. It’s a two-year training program, where they're effectively teaching us all of the broad-based skills of life in space.

Much of that is focused on International Space Station systems and procedures and how things work once you get to the space station. NASA is transitioning to Artemis training, but a lot of those same concepts, skills, and systems apply.

We are flying the that builds our resource management skills, which is a big concept in the aviation industry – two people in a fast moving airplane who are fully responsible for themselves in their aircraft. You have to make decisions quickly, working well as a team, so it's important for our training that we fly in a fast paced environment.

We are also starting our space suit scuba diving in the this spring. I have been fitted for a spacesuit, which is kind of unreal. I’ll have have scuba dive sessions in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, human jungle gyming around the space station mockup underwater with my ASCAN peers, which is awesome.

Everyone said the suits would be uncomfortable. But you just don't know what that means until you try to wiggle your body into this hard upper torso. It's pretty eye-opening.

Astronauts, at least on the space station, their schedules are fully booked. You are a human science experiment, and you are running science experiments for other people. My goal, especially in astronaut candidate training is to learn those fundamental skills, do them well, and do them safely and efficiently.

How did you find out you were chosen?

I’m a Navy pilot F-18 and was preparing to deploy. I was packed up and five days away from meeting my aircraft carrier to pull out of port.

I went through the interview process, thinking this is a really cool experience, and I'm going to make the most of it, not expecting to get the call. I was ready to do the deployment with my whole heart.

It was 9 o'clock at night on a Monday and here's this unknown number dialing my phone. My spouse and I looked at each other one last time, knowing that this moment could change our lives forever. 


I answered the call, and it was the chief of the Astronaut Office offering me the job, which is giving me goosebumps to think about, still.

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Overcash and the 10 members of the Class of 2025 NASA astronaut candidates.

What brought you to CU Boulder?

My dream started as wanting to fly, wanting to be a pilot, wanting to study aerospace engineering. That's what led me to CU Boulder. I'm from Kentucky, born and raised, but Kentucky did not have an aerospace engineering program within the state.

I joined Navy ROTC. The Navy paid for school and I went through CU for aerospace. It really set me on this path of opening doors to the things that I loved, which coincidentally also opened doors to being an astronaut, but those things were independent of each other at the time.

I remember walking through the Engineering Center at CU and seeing the alumni astronaut photos on the wall and feeling so inspired. CU’s airspace program is known for producing astronauts and really good, high level professional aerospace engineers. I thought being an astronaut would be this really cool job, but going to CU was the first time I thought, wow, I'm kind of on track.

What has your career path been since graduation?

I graduated in 2014 with a bachelor's. Because I went through Navy ROTC, I became a pilot. I went through Navy Flight School and at the same time got my master's degree in bioastronautics, also from CU via their distance learning program.

After I became an F-18 pilot, I had an operational tour and I spent three years living in Japan, with multiple deployments on an aircraft carrier. That was an eye-opening experience, really cool, awesome, challenging, and insightful.

I went through the U.S. Navy Test Pilot School in 2022 and had a really fun, enlightening experience as a test pilot in the F-18 for the Navy flying departures – departing the airplane on purpose, spinning, falling backwards, and tail sliding through my own exhaust. Things that most aviators never get to do and that was my everyday as a test pilot. I loved that job.

I was about to go on deployment with my next squadron when NASA called, so I had a good path in life set up either way.

How many times had you applied to the astronaut program before?

You'll probably be surprised to hear that this was my first time applying. which is really unusual, and I can't explain that. I feel lucky and honored and privileged to be here. ItÌýjust happened to work out this time.

What do you think made you an appealing candidate to NASA? 


I don't necessarily have one piece of advice besides find what you're passionate about, and just be really, really good at that. I was not on the selection board, but my impression is that NASA wasn't looking for people who really wanted to be astronauts, they were looking for people who were really good and really loved the job that they were doing.

Find what you're passionate about and go for it, and if you are a good, hard-working person with an open mind and you're curious, everybody's got a shot.