How to become a spaceship pilot
I’m piloting a spaceship right now.
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Hmm. Dunno offhand. The Shuttle could be flown as a human-piloted aircraft from low supersonic to touchdown, (though it could also land hands-off), so piloting skills would be valuable.
Test pilot was the usual path for that, of course.
The X-15 program had some pilots who were civilians at the time, but they all had military flight backgrounds prior to their stints as NASA or private (NAA) test pilots.
None of our other crewed spacecraft required airplane-like flying experience, so ‘pilot’ is sort of an odd misnomer.
But with the capsules everybody was a pilot 
Mercury: One astronaut. “Pilot”, of course.
Gemini: Two astronauts: “Commander” and “Pilot”.
Apollo: Three astros: “Command Module Pilot”, “Lunar Module Commander” and “Lunar Module Pilot”
The only capsule-era civilian with no prior military flying who comes to mind is geologist Harrison Schmitt, Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 17.
As for the shuttle, some Commanders and Pilots were retired-military civilian NASA employees (Eileen Collins, f’rex with four shuttle flights, two as CDR, two as pilot.) but I don’t know offhand if there’ve been any with no military background.
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have perfect eyesight
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have perfect grades
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Air Force ROTC
am i getting warm
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