You know I love you hornet, but you just proved my point that the thread will not take a hard turn and become about AF vs Navy, who has more, where you have a better chance...or worse yet, it will become Astronaut MDs vs Flight surgeon, or the words jet jock and fighter jock.
None of that is important. the fact is you probably have a better chance of being struck by lightning than going up in a shuttle, or flying for the Thunderbirds/Blue Angels...Think about it, how many aircrews are in the Navy, AF, Marines or Army, and how many are at NASA? Maybe 1 in tens of thousands get selected out of all that are current flyers. Mike Gode went with 2 other guys to TPS out of 300 flyers from our base, also the 1st guys to ever be selected in the 3 yrs we were there...Wings PCS about 1/3 a yr, that means just out of our base the number was closer to 500-600(300 in 89, 100 leave, 100 new =400 flyers for 90, 100 leave 100 replaced, means 500 for 91). The other 2 were never selected for NASA Add into the equation you will probably be close or past retirement when you get up there. We haven't spoken to Mike or Joan in yrs, saw him at the O'Club 2 yrs ago, but I would bet that Mike has now officially submitted his retirement papers and will move over to the dark side working for NASA.
Not saying don't go for it, just saying the path is very long and the reality is you first need to be accepted to the SA, graduate from the SA, get a UPT slot, graduate the top of the top to get a fighter, graduate from FTU, go operational, get command sponsored to apply for TPS, get selected for TPS, graduate, get command sponsor to apply for NASA, and get selected. You have at least 8 MAJOR hurdles to clear, and that is for a Pilot...now most flight surgeons out of the AF, go UPT first, than apply for med school, they don't go TPS, they apply as a flight surgeon.