NASA Astronaut Corps Center in Houston, although members may be assigned to other locations based on mission requirements, e.g. Soyuz training at Star City, Russia. The Chief of the Astronaut Office is the most senior leadership position for active astronauts in the Corps. The Chief Astronaut serves as head of the Corps and is the principal adviser to the NASA Administrator on astronaut training and operations. The first Chief Astronaut was Deke Slayton, appointed in 1962. The current Chief Astronaut is Patrick Forrester. Salaries for newly hired civilian astronauts are based on the federal government's General Schedule pay scale for grades GS-11 through
Chinese as a foreign language the Kuomintang took over control from Japan after World War II. In 2010, 750,000 people (670,000 from overseas) took the Chinese Proficiency Test. For comparison, in 2005, 117,660 non-native speakers took the test, an increase of 26.52% from 2004. From 2000 to 2004, the number of students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland taking Advanced Level exams in Chinese increased by 57%. An independent school in the UK made Chinese one of their compulsory subjects for study in 2006. The study of Chinese is also rising in the United States. The USC U.S.-China Institute cited a report that 51,582 students