Space From Selection to Mission. NASA Astronauts

The First Classes of Astronauts at NASA

Major John H. Glenn Jr. suited up at Cape Canaveral during a mission pre-flight activities. picture NASA

Only 330 Americans have been chosen by NASA to become astronauts, beginning with the seven original Mercury astronauts in 1959. The number of applicants over the decades reached nearly 45,000. Once NASA created, in 1958, the agency asked the military services to provide a list of people meeting specific qualifications -of them a jet aircraft flight experience and engineering training. They were screened as, eventually, seven men were selected. These were the fist American astronauts. They were all men, and all pilots. They came to be called the "Original Seven." NASA, since, has selected 18 more groups of astronauts, totalizing 321 astronauts As soon as the beginning of the 1960s, the second -- known as the 'New Nine' -- and third group of astronauts included civilians -they had an extensive flying experience however, as, as soon as 1964, requirements changed and emphasis was placed on academic qualifications. In 1965, six scientist astronauts were selected in the fourth astronaut selection group. It may be noticed that, about 1969, a group of seven Air Force astronauts trainees joined the NASA due to the Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory program being canceled. It was known like the 'Group 7.' Another point to be taken into consideration about the astronauts' selection is that there was, someway, the period before the Space Shuttle, and the period of it. The first group of astronauts candidates for the Space Shuttle program was selected in January 1978. Groups of astronauts for the Shuttle are comprising pilots and mission specialists. 8 more groups of astronauts for the Shuttle were added since. The participation of the USA into the International Space Station (ISS) brought other considerations too. NASA typically receives about 3,500 applicants for each astronaut class

U.S.A.F. Maj. Robert Lawrence was the first African-American astronaut, and selected as a U.S. Air Force astronaut on June 30, 1967. He was among those designated to fly aboard the MOL, that military program, which was canceled in 1969, involving a small, single-use space station in which crews would launch and land in an advanced Gemini spacecraft. Six months after his selection as an astronaut for the MOL Program, Lawrence was killed in an F-104 crash during a training accident on Dec 8, 1967, at Edwards Air Force Base, California as he was flying backseat as the instructor pilot for a flight test trainee learning the steep-descent glide technique. He was involved in development of the maneuver that would become a critical part of space shuttle landing techniques called 'flare.' Although never a NASA program, a group of women had been chosen and tested along the Mercury program by William Randolph Lovelace, the man who originally helped to develop the tests for NASA’s Mercury Program in the early 1960s. Lovelace conducted the tests in his private clinic. The group was termed, by one of them, 'FLAT,' for 'Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees.' 13 women had been selected: Geraldyn (Jerrie) Cobb, Wally Funk, Irene Leverton, Myrtle 'K' Cagle, Janey Hart, Gene Nora Stumbough, Jerri Sloan, Rhea Hurrle, Sarah Gorelick, Bernice 'B' Trimble Steadman, Jan Dietrich, Marion Dietrich, and Jean Hixson. They all hold a bachelor’s degree, a FAA commercial pilot rating or better, with over 2,000 hours of flying time. Even as the FLAT passed tests with flying colors, testing ended abruptly after the Navy refused to grant Lovelace and his women trainees further access to the testing facilities at the Naval School of Aviation Medicine in Pensacola, Florida, citing the lack of a official NASA request as the reason. On request of FLAT women however, a special Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics was created in July 1962 but due in part to negative testimony from Congressmen and NASA officials, including George Low, Scott Carpenter, and John Glenn, no action resulted from the hearings. Early female aviator Jackie Cochran had funded most of the program but she also eventually spoke against befr the committee. The FLAT indeed had turned a investigation about sex discrimination two years before the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It is not until the Astronaut Class of 1978, otherwise known as the 'Thirty-Five New Guys' as that was the first renewal of NASA's astronauts since 1969, that NASA eventually got its first group of astronauts to recruit women to its ranks, of them Sally Ride who became the first American woman to fly in space in 1983 aboard STS-7 space shuttle mission. Until now NASA had insisted that all astronauts have military jet test pilot experience, thereby eliminating all women until that time as the requirement had been established by President Eisenhower himself in December 1958. Three of the astronauts selected were also the first African Americans in NASA's astronaut program, including Asian Americans too. Guion Bluford, better known as Guy, became the first African-American in August 1983 to fly in space. Since the inception of the history of the space age 71 women worldwide have flown in space, serving at every duty of a mission. After the Apollo era, the Space Shuttle one opened missions to mission specialists and women, as NASA eventually nowadays select astronaut classes with equal numbers of women and men, as women now comprise 34 percent of the active astronauts at NASA. Today, African American, Asian, Pacific Islander, Hispanic, and multi-racial astronauts are 24 percent of NASA's active astronaut corps

The Astronauts Corps Under the Space Shuttle Program

the six astronauts for the STS-72 mission of the Space Shuttle. picture NASA

Under the Space Shuttle program, the selection of the astronauts was made from a pool of various backgrounds and mainly aims at manning the Space Shuttle program. Every two year a class of candidate astronauts was selected, including both pilots and mission specialists. Both military personnel and civilians might apply for the program. People from the army had to apply through their parent service and be nominated by their service to NASA. For both pilots and mission specialists, the education and experience requirements were at least a bachelor's degree from an accredited institution in engineering, biological science, physical science, or mathematics. Mission specialists, further, had to follow their degree with three years of related professional experience, as an advanced degree was desirable and might be substituted for all or part of this experience requirement. As far as pilot applicants were concerned, they must have logged 1,000 hours of pilot-in-command in a jet aicraft and flight test experience was highly desirable, they must have a height between 64 and 76 inches, and they had to pass a NASA Class I space physical, requirements of which are standard to the military or civilian Class I flight physical. Mission specialists had to physically comply to a NASA Class II space physical only, which is the equivalent of a military or civilian Class II flight physical. They had to meet a height of 58.5-76 inches. Each class of astronauts selected roughly comprised one-third of pilots and two-thirds of scientists and engineers. NASA panels were evaluating the applicants meeting the basic qualifications, as finalists were screened during a week-long process (personal interviews, thorough medical evaluations). Criteria by the board of selection were based on education, training and experience as well as on unique qualifications and skills. The personal interview played the main part in the selection process to select among several hundred applicants. A team player aptitude was required to the specific, crew conditions of work aboard the Space Shuttle. The most current class of astronauts was the one which was to be selected in spring 2009, the next to the 2004 one, and to be trained during the next two years. 3,564 applicants applied for the class, with 40 persons retained under consideration. 12 or so only were to be part of the class, thus joining a corps of 85 active astronauts in total. NASA had announced in September 2007 it was accepting applications from pilots, engineers, scientists and teachers for that class. More geology and geophysics were to be part of the training now, with Moon and Mars new targets. NASA, recently, chose to set up, with each class of astronauts, to include so-called 'educator-astronauts', which were usually teachers with a maths, or science background and were meant to inspire among young the interest into science and space. The first group of educator-astronauts came into life with the class of astronauts of 2004. Educator-astronauts were receiving the same training than the other, selected astronauts. In the mid-1980s, two persons already having an educational background, got a minimal astronaut training. In 1998, NASA too had had a teacher trained like a full-fledged astronaut

Space Shuttle Astronauts Training

Selected applicants were designated "astronaut candidates" and directed to the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, for a 1 to 2 year training and evaluation program at the issue of which the one who succeed became "astronauts". Successfull civilians were expected to remain with NASA for at least 5 years, as military candidates were dispatched to NASA by their authority for a specified tour of duty. The astronaut candidates training was made of classes on shuttle systems and space-related basic science and technology (from maths to orbital dynamics or material processing). Land and sea survival training was also provided along with scuba diving, space suits specifics, low or high pressure emergencies. Using the famed NASA aircrafts which provide periods of weightlessness, astronauts were exposed to the feeling of microgravity. Pilots, as far as they were concerned, were maintaining their flying proficiency with 15 hours of flight a month, using NASA's fleet of 2-seat T-38 jets. They were also practicing Orbiter landings in the "Shuttle Training Aircraft" (STA), one of four Gulfstream II business jets modified to perform like the Orbiter during landing. Mission specialists were also obliged to pass their degrees in piloting, flying a minimum of 4 hours a month. The candidate astronauts were beginning their acquaintance with the Space Shuttle transportation system by reading manuals and computer-based training lessions concerning the various systems of the orbiter. Each candidate, then, used the "single systems trainer" (SST), that was that they learned to operate each of the Shuttle's subsystems using checklists similar to those found during a real mission. Sessions with more training simulators were following: Shuttle Mission Simulators (SMSs), which were about the major flight phases (prelaunch, ascent, orbital operation, payload, maneuvers, rendezvous); a fixed base SMS simulating a mission from launch to landing; and a motion base SMS specifically dedicated to the training of pilots and commanders for the phases of launch, descent, and landing. Once the candidates selected as astronauts, they continued that sort of simulator-based training. They were using generic training softwares until they were assigned to their first specified mission. This usually occured 10 months before the flight. Once assigned to a mission, astronauts trained now with actual flight-specific training software (the training duration was of about 300 hours). During the last 11 weeks, the astronauts trained also with the flight controllers in the "Mission Control Center" (MCC), using the SMS. Both the center and the simulator were linked by computers, simulating the interaction between the flight controlers and the mission. Other training systems, at last, were used for particular purposes: the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL), a large water tank, allows the simulation of weightless conditions (it's the famous pool where astronauts were working underwater); the "full fuselage trainer" was a full-sized plywood Orbiter mockup with nonfunctional mid-deck and flight deck, and full-scale payload bay allows for an orientation-based familiarization with the orbiter; the "crew compartment trainer" was a mockup of the forward section of the Orbiter crew station, without a payload bay, that could be tilted vertically, used to train for on-orbit habitability procedures and also emergency pad egress and bailout operations; or the "manipulator development facility" was a full-scale mockup of the payload bay with full-scale robotic arm. A systems engineering simulator in the Avionics Systems Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center was used by astronauts flying to the ISS as the facility includes moving scenes of full-sized International Space Station components over a simulated Earth.

ISS systems engineering simulator at NASA's Johnson Space Center. picture NASA/JSC

Pilots, specifically, received too a specific training as an actual mission's preparation was rolling, aboard their STA. They continued to improve their skills at landing the orbiter. The orbiter was approaching landings at a steep angle of 17-20° and a high speed (over 300 mph -about 260 kts). Engines in reverse thrust and main landing gear down was increasing drag to mimic such an approach. 100 hours of STA training were performed before a mission, equipolating to 600 Shuttle's approaches! When the crewmembers were not part of any training listed above, they were keeping themselves up-to-date on the status of the spacecraft and payloads, in regard to their assigned mission. They studied too flight rules and flight data file procedures. They participated in technical meetings, test and checkout activities at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida -the launch site for the Shuttle. When the actual mission came, far fewer contingencies occured than seen during the training, as most astronauts have commented that only the noise and vibration of launch and the actual experience of weightlessness were an addition, compared to the simulators' sessions. When astronauts of the Shuttle program participated into the program with the Russian Mir space station, they had to learn Russian language and they were then transferred to the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center during about 13 months where they eventually reached the level allowing a technical intiation to the Russian systems and scientific experiments. The astronauts then joined back the Shuttle crew training during the final phase, 4 weeks before launch. Pilot astronauts served both as Space Shuttle commanders and pilots. Commanders had the onboard responsability for the mission, as pilots were assisting them and were using the remote manipulator system (RMS) for the possible retrieval of satellites. Mission specialists were dedicated to Shuttle's systems or to experiment/payload operations. They might perform extravehicular activities (EVAs), operate the remote manipulator system too. A mission might be added with "payload specialists". These were people, other than NASA astronauts, who might be added to Shuttle's crews for activites with unique requirements or when more than the minimum crew size of five was required. Such payload specialists were not participating into the training of NASA astronauts. They must have the appropriate education and training related to their participation however. Once a mission over, the crew was spending several days in several days in medical testing and debriefing, recounting their experiences for the benefit of future crews and of future training

The Astronauts Corps After the Space Shuttle Program

By Space Shuttle's last years, latest corps of NASA astronauts had come to a lowest of 60 from a all-time high of 149 in 2000. The latest recruiting episode, which started by late 2011 might provide for a small new class of astronauts. They are required to have qualifications including a bachelor's degree in engineering, science or math and three years of relevant professional experience. Extensive experience flying high-performance jet aircraft was often a help as educators teaching kindergarten through 12th grade with these minimimum degree requirements also are encouraged to apply. What that new class should be used for, with the US now with no credible and immediate access to the Earth orbit might consist into missions on the International Space Station and flying up in Russia's Soyuz spacecraft. Then into working on the design and development of future NASA craft and giving feedback. Later into manned missions aboard next U.S. vehicles to visit a asteroid in 2025, or missions to the Moon and Mars. Some astronauts should also move to other positions within the agency. A psychological selection also occurs, consisting of two parts with a initial set of interviews then the applicants assessed based on their suitability for the job, and interviews are extant with a psychiatrist to determine any grounds for disqualification. By July 2015, eight new astronauts, part of the 2013 astronaut class, joined NASA corps as they had been chosen from 6,300 applications, the second largest number of applications NASA ever has received. NASA's latest class of astronauts was graduated by January 2020

As soon as before the post-Space Shuttle era, astronauts did only fly in space or trained for that. They also, for example, served like a 'Capsule Communicator,' or Capcom at the Mission Control Center, talking to flying crews on the radio, or flew a plane ahead a Space Shuttle launch to monitor weather