Furthermore, applying women must also not have a criminal record and need to pass a series of athletic tests.
Oh, and maybe it goes without saying, but this is only open to Russian citizens.
On a more unusual note, the applicants must send in a screen test where they’re reading Russian poet Alexander Pushkin’s famous letter from Tatyana to Eugene Onegin in the 1833 novel named after the latter character.
A shortlist of 30 candidates will ultimately be put together, and from that group, two women will be chosen and trained as “cosmonaut researchers,” with one of them scoring the lead role and the other one working as the understudy/stunt double.