Getting into NASA's 2017 astronaut class is 74 times harder than getting into Harvard - here's how the selection process works

NASA recently announced that it had a record high number of applicants for the 2017 astronaut class.

A whopping 18,300 people are fighting for less than 15 highly coveted spots. Its previous record was 8,000 applicants in 1978.

The space agency just began an 18-month-long process "that will end with the selection of eight to 14 individuals for the opportunity to become astronaut candidates," the official press release explains.

Assuming NASA accepts 14 people, the acceptance rate will be just .08%. Meanwhile, Harvard - one of the most competitive universities in the world - accepted 5.9% of its applicants in 2014.

To figure out how the application and selection processes work, we spoke to a NASA spokesperson and reviewed the official guidelines on the website. Here's what we found: