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Wanted: Astronauts; Missing: US rocket to fly them

(AP) -- NASA is looking to hire new astronauts to fly in space. You can even apply online at a giant government jobs website.

Only one trouble: With the space shuttle fleet retired, NASA doesn't have its own spaceship to fly astronauts and is sending fewer of them into orbit.

But with veteran astronauts leaving the space agency, NASA's flight crew chief says the agency is afraid it will not have enough astronauts. So in front of dozens of elementary school students, NASA on Tuesday unveiled its biggest ever public push to hire new astronauts.

Astronauts will fly on a Russian Soyuz spaceship to the International Space Station, eventually on American-built commercial rockets and even later in a NASA crew capsule.