Preparation Before Space Travel by: Sila Virdell

WWK: The preparations astronauts must go through before involving in space travel.

Underwater Training To get the sensation of a no gravity atmosphere, astronauts do most of their training underneath water in neutral buoyancy water tanks to conduct space walks, or they use swimming pools. This is essential before space travel, so the astronaut is prepared for the conditions of space. Astronauts must also take a scuba diving class, to get a feel for how they should maneuver around in space.

Keeping the body healthy while being in space. Being weightless for long periods of time makes muscles and bones weaker, and astronauts spending time in space must exercise and eat healthy to stay fit. Therefore, astronauts are taught several ways to keep their bodies in shape before they are sent to space. They have specific exercising equipment such as the picture shown to the right. Most of the equipment involves a resistor, because lifting weights in space would be pointless, considering there is no gravity.

Safety Procedures As a mission commander, there always has to be two people running everything for a safe flight. It’s crucial that everything goes as planned for the safety of the astronauts and for the safety of the million dollar project. Communication is also a huge factor to a safe flight, the astronauts and the technicians controlling from earth must constantly be in communication with one another to insure that everything is going as planned. For example, the mission control should always remind the astronaut about time and oxygen left.

Amount of Time it Takes for Training. The total time spent training the simulators for a specific mission is about 300 hours, Including the 10-15, six-hour sessions of underwater training. A lot of time and effort is put forth into preparing for space travel. Many can be qualified to become an astronaut, but NASA chooses the best of the best to conduct outer space experiments, and astronauts have to have a total of three years of technical experience before they can go into training for space travel. So the process can be longer than expected.

Prior Experience Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon, but it wasn’t like he didn’t have absolutely no experience at all. Before Neil Armstrong became an astronaut, he had been a test pilot for the X 15, the fastest aero plane ever built. Every astronaut must have a pilot background, or have experience with other planes before they can try to maneuver a space shuttle, along with other experiences such as dealing with high velocities, and also taking psychological tests.

More training Not only do astronauts have to have so much experience, do hours of basic training, and study about space, but they also get to travel to Europe, Canada, Russia and Japan to study more about the scientific experiments and whatever else they have to do in space. It could also takes years for a space flight to open up, so being in the space field is obviously very difficult and very time consuming. Not to mention all of the learning you have to do.