Space Education, Media & Outreach

Sharing the wonder of space with everyone: planetariums, museums, journalists, artists, filmmakers, and teachers.

Top pay: highest pay, longest training

• Aerospace Engineering Professor: Teaches future engineers and runs a research lab that might build satellites or rocket engines. Typical pay $125k.
• NASA STEM Engagement Program Manager: Runs national programs that bring students into space science, from internships to rocket and robotics competitions. Typical pay $140k.

Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship

• NASA Public Affairs Officer: Tells the public about space missions through press releases, social media, and launch broadcasts. Typical pay $75k.
• Launch Broadcast Host / Commentator: Explains what's happening, live, during rocket launch webcasts watched by millions. Typical pay $85k.
• Space Journalist: Reports news about rockets, NASA, astronomy, and the space industry. Typical pay $60k.
• Planetarium Director: Runs a planetarium: shows, school programs, telescope nights, and the dome projection system. Typical pay $72k.
• Planetarium Show Producer / Fulldome Animator: Creates the immersive 360-degree animated shows projected on planetarium domes. Typical pay $80k.
• Air & Space Museum Curator: Cares for and researches historic aircraft and spacecraft, and designs exhibits about them. Typical pay $65k.
• Space Historian: Researches and writes the history of space exploration and its people. Typical pay $72k.
• Aerospace Education Specialist: Designs space-themed lessons and programs for teachers and students. Typical pay $70k.
• Sci-Fi Film Technical Consultant: Helps movies, TV shows, and video games get the science of space right, or at least believable. Typical pay $70k.
• High School Physics & Astronomy Teacher: Teaches teens physics and astronomy, and often runs rocketry or robotics clubs. Typical pay $66k.
• Space Documentary Producer: Creates documentaries and series about rockets, astronauts and the universe for TV and streaming. Typical pay $95k.

Starter: fastest way in

• Space Artist / Illustrator: Paints and digitally renders scenes of planets, spacecraft, and future missions that cameras can't capture. Typical pay $52k.
• Space Content Creator / YouTuber: Makes videos, streams, or podcasts explaining space news, launches, and science. Typical pay $35k.
• Space Camp Counselor: Leads kids and teens through astronaut-style training, simulated missions, and rocket launches at space camps. Typical pay $32k.
• Space Museum Educator / Docent: Teaches visitors at science centers and space museums with demos, tours, and hands-on activities. Typical pay $40k.

Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.