So far, a total of 565 people have gone to space.
In 2017, NASA recruited its latest batch of trainees:
Group 22, aka “The Turtles”.
Only 12 out of more than 18,300 applicants were selected.
So what does the resume of a fresh NASA trainee look like?
Let’s take a look at Jonny Kim,
one of the 12 selected for NASA’s Group 22 batch.
Kim joined the Navy fresh out of high school in 2002.
After completing training he joined the Navy Seals.
He was deployed twice to the Middle East and there
he served as a sniper, combat medic, navigator, and point man on more than 100 combat operations.
His service earned him a Silver Star and a Bronze Star.
Impressed? There’s more.
In 2012, Kim graduated summa cum laude
with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of San Diego.
Driven by what he had observed as a medic during his two deployments,
Kim decided to study medicine at Harvard Medical School.
When he was selected to join NASA,
Kim was a resident physician in emergency medicine
with Partners Healthcare at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Kim is just 35 years old.
So why would someone already accomplished in several fields want to become an astronaut?
I fundamentally believed in the NASA mission
of advancing our space frontier,
all while developing innovations and new technologies that would benefit all of humankind.
Of course, not all candidates can be Navy Seal mathematician Harvard med school graduates.
That’s not to say that their resumes are not as impressive.
So what does it take to become an astronaut?
What type of training do selected candidates go through?
And how much of their time do astronauts actually spend in space?
You’re watching Explore Mode and
today we are telling you all about NASA’s astronaut selection process.
Step one: Get the right degree.
According to NASA themselves,
the following degrees will help you get a step closer to becoming Major Tom:
Engineering, Biological Science, Physical Science, Computer Science, or Mathematics.
Now, this may sound very limiting,
for those of you who aren’t scientifically inclined,
but it just so happens that people with these degrees
are better prepared to conduct experiments up in space
or carry out repair missions in the International Space Station.
However, decades ago,
it wasn’t just people with a background in science who could become astronauts.
Time for an Express Explore Explanation!
Start the clock!
Back in 1957, The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1and 2,
the first two man-made satellites to be placed into Earth’s orbit.
The second one being the first to carry animal life
a small dog called Laika,
who deserves an Explore Mode episode of her own, to be honest,
click the poll to let us know if that’s something you’d like to see!
So in 1958,
the U.S. was keen on getting ahead in the Space Race.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower created NASA.
NASA’s first human spaceflight program was called Project Mercury.
Its goal?
To assemble the first human space flight crew that would put a man into Earth’s orbit,
before the Soviet Union of course.
At the time, potential astronauts had to cover the following selection criteria:
They had to be less than 40 years old;
They had to be less than 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) tall;
Thay had to be in excellent physical condition;
They had to have a bachelor's degree or equivalent diploma;
They had to be a graduate of test pilot school with
a minimum of 1,500 hours total flying time
and also had to be a qualified jet pilot.
Back then, you had to have piloting experience in order to even be considered for the program
because NASA’s early spacecraft would require some sort of manual piloting.
Nowadays, NASA says that
“Flying experience is not a requirement,”
but that “Any type of flying experience-military or private, is beneficial to have.”
Seven lucky men made it into NASA’s first Astronaut group:
Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton.
However, it would be a Soviet cosmonaut who would become the first man to orbit around Earth.
On April 12, 1961,
Yuri Gagarin became the first human to journey into outer space.
Let’s keep going down the checklist of astronaut requirements.
As we said in the Express Explore Explanation,
being a trained pilot is no longer a must.
Wanna-be astronauts can present evidence of having at least
3 years of experience working in their field after obtaining their degrees
instead of completing 1,000 hours of pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft.
Needless to say, astronauts need to be in tip-top physical condition,
and according to NASA excellent vision is a must.
Whether it’s through LASIK surgery or glasses,
astronauts need to have 20/20 vision.
Applicants also have to have the right anthropometric requirements,
to be able to perform spacewalks and fit into the spacesuits and capsules.
Oh, and you have to either be a U.S. Citizen
or possess dual citizenship to be part of NASA space missions,
although they often collaborate with other International Space Missions such as
the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency,
the European Space Agency,
the Canadian Space Agency and
Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities from Russia.
These are all requirements NASA has made available to the public,
however, there are many abilities needed to become an astronaut that don’t really translate well on paper.
An astronaut needs to possess great psychological agility and resilience
in order to face possible challenges up in space.
So, say you passed the selection process.
Congratulations!
Now you begin two years of basic training.
Welcome to the Johnson Space Center, or JSC.
This is where the selected astronaut candidates will take classes on space systems and space vehicles
along with Earth sciences, meteorology, space science, and engineering.
That’s the mentally demanding part.
Then comes the physical work.
Candidates train in land and water survival
— in case of an emergency landing back on Earth —
aircraft operations and also intense swimming and scuba diving.
Swimming and scuba diving may seem like unnecessary skills when you’re floating up in waterless space,
but it does give astronauts a feel of the obstacles they will face
while carrying out engineering operations in a microgravity environment.
The water training is quite intense,
candidates have to swim three lengths of a 25-meter pool without stopping,
and then swim three lengths of the pool in a flight suit and tennis shoes,
this round has no time limits.
After they’re done, they need to tread water non-stop for 10 minutes while still wearing their flight suits.
In order to experience what microgravity will feel like onboard the International Space Station,
candidates fly on a reduced-gravity aircraft that performs parabolic maneuvers,
creating brief moments of weightlessness for roughly 20 seconds.
This may sound like a lot of fun,
but imagine doing it up to 40 times a day.
Yeah, not a lot of fun for your stomach.
In order for a candidate to graduate into a fully-fledged astronaut,
they must have completed the following courses:
International Space Station systems training,
Extravehicular Activity skills training,
Robotics skills training,
Russian Language training,
and aircraft flight readiness training.
After candidates are done with basic training
they are given mission assignments and separated into two groups:
pilots and mission specialists.
Then the training continues.
Water.
It’s an important element in astronaut training.
So much so that NASA has an entire facility dedicated to underwater training:
The Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.
See there is no place on Earth that has microgravity,
which makes it a bit complicated when it comes to training people
who are about to be blasted into space to live in, well, microgravity.
Luckily for humans, water exists,
and although we cannot erase gravity underwater
we can achieve neutral buoyancy,
which is the closest we can get here on Earth to weightlessness.
The NBL was built specifically to prepare astronauts to carry out spacewalks in full astro-equipment,
while being constrained by microgravity.
Inside this gigantic pool are several different mockups of modules of the ISS.
Astronauts are put inside the pool in full gear,
and with the help of specially trained assistant divers,
they practice fixing components outside of the ISS
and overall, get a feel of how to move around in their massive, stiff suits
while being suspended in the vacuum of space.
In addition,
pilot astronauts need to keep their flying skills sharp
by clocking in 15 hours of flying time per month.
This is to help them get adjusted to g-forces experienced during launch time.
It can get ugly, check this out.
On October 18, NASA conducted its first all-female spacewalk.
NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir
put on their suits to replace a failed power controller
outside the ISS in an operation that lasted seven hours and seventeen minutes.
This was Meir’s first spacewalk and the fourth for Koch,
who has now accumulated almost 28 hours of spacewalking time.
So far, we’ve sent humans to orbit around space,
we’ve sent them to the moon and we have sent probes
to Mars, Venus, Titan and even some asteroids and comets.
So what’s next?
Well, NASA wants to send humans to Mars by the 2030s.
They already have a 5 phase plan.
Their goal?
“To enable a capability to extend human presence,
including potential human habitation on another celestial body
and a thriving space economy in the 21st Century.”
Surely, astronauts selected for this program will face an even more…
interesting selection and training program.
What do you think?
Will we make it to Mars within the next couple of decades?
Let us know in the comments!
Thanks for watching Explore Mode,
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If you want to learn more about space,
check out our video on NASA’s top 3 missions in the past decades.
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See you next week, and in the meantime,
keep your explore mode on.