Houston, we have a … job?
A career at NASA commanding space exploration missions from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston was recently voted as the “coolest” job in all of Texas.
That’s according to a study conducted by career.io, which surveyed 3,002 job seekers asking them to name the coolest positions in every state in the U.S.
“The results paint a vivid picture of ambition, adventure, and some seriously cool roles,” according to a statement from the company, a platform that offers a range of job search and career advancement tools, including a resume-builder.
Here’s what to know about the role of a flight director, selected as the “coolest” job in Texas.
Flight director at NASA ‘a real-life sci-fi gig’
The Apollo Flight Control Room at the Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control Center is photographed in August 2022 in Houston, Texas.
Career.io compared a flight director at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to “a real-life sci-fi gig.”
According to the career services platform, flight directors can earn $110,00 to $160,000 a year guiding spaceflight missions and communicating with astronauts on the International Space Station from the iconic mission control.
“You’ll manage crises like spacewalk snafus, lead simulation drills, and brief top brass,” according to the company. “It’s high-pressure leadership with interstellar stakes – this is the job that makes ‘Houston, we have a problem’ your problem to solve.”
What is flight director in Houston? NASA explains
A flight control room in the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center is seen in October 2018 during a media preview for an upcoming public open house at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
NASA has certified 108 flight directors throughout its 66-year history, the U.S. space agency said in an email to the USA TODAY Network. As of 2025, 30 active flight directors are employed with the Johnson Space Center.
Those who hold the job title are responsible for leading teams in mission control that support astronauts at the International Space Station – of whom there are currently seven, including three Americans. That includes communicating with astronauts during spacewalks and working with them during day-to-day science experiments and station maintenance.
Flight directors also help manage crewed spaceflights during and after launch, which most often takes place from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida. That means they’ll be integral for planning upcoming human missions around and to the moon under the agency’s Artemis lunar program.
Mike Lammers, deputy chief flight director at Johnson Space Center, said in a statement to the USA TODAY Network that his position “feels like a cool job with a different challenge every day.”
“There’s something unique about your phone ringing and the caller ID saying ‘outer space’ when a crewmember calls us to chat about life on orbit or something we can help with,” Lammers said.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: What’s the ‘coolest’ job in Texas? Survey finds it’s a job at NASA