Looks like a nice place: astronaut training
In the early days of manned spaceflight, NASA
recruited pilots to become astronauts. They were
already trained to fly and survive in a harsh environment if they needed to after a failure of their
aircraft for any reason. With the advent of the
Space Shuttle and afterwards, the International
Space Station, more specialized Astronauts, known
as Mission Specialists on Shuttle flights, are now
required. Mission Specialists perform tasks such
as servicing satellite, servicing the ISS, performing
experiments, and other tasks that a military pilot
might not have the advanced education and
training to perform. So NASA turned to civilians
and non-pilot military personnel to fill these new
astronauts positions on the shuttle and ISS crews.
One part of the astronaut candidates training is known as wilderness survival training.
Whether launching on a rocket, or flying in an
aircraft, a mechanical failure could land them
in a very remote part of the world, so survival
training is a must. Much of this initial training
occurs at the Navy’s 12,500-acre Rangeley
mountain wilderness training facility at Brunswick Naval Air Station. Here they will learn land
survival, navigation, and field medicine.
Since some of these new astronauts did not
come from a pilot background, they will require
similar flight and survival training as their pilot
counterparts had. The Naval Air Station (NAS) at
Pensacola, Florida has been providing training
for Astronaut Candidates (often referred to as
ASCANS) for many years now. The candidates receive water survival training, aviation physiology
and flight training, including flight training in simulators, familiarization flights and instrument training
flights. Once selected, the astronauts will travel a
lot in NASA’s T-38 aircraft with an experienced pilot, so therefore flight training is essential to them.
NASA astronaut candidate Christina Hammock starts a fire successfully during
wilderness survival training near Rangeley, Maine. Credit: NASA/Lauren Harnett
Group 15, 1995 Astronaut Class Candidates (ASCANs) participate in training
and survival activities at Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida.. Credit: NASA
Ringing the bell: international space station
What a better way to end this article then with one
more Navy tradition that has made its way into our
human spaceflight program. Bells have been used in
the Navy for a long time now. Among other things,
they are used to signal the arrival or departure of important personnel, such as a Captain, Flag Officer,
or other high ranking personnel. They are also used
to signal a change in command. Today onboard
the International Space Station, such a bell resides
and is rung whenever a spaceship arrives or departs. So now we ring the bell and depart this story.
Astronauts Brent W. Jett, Jr. (left) and William M. Shepherd participate
in an old Navy tradition of ringing a bell to announce the arrival or
departure of someone to a ship. The bell is mounted on the wall in
the Unity node of the International Space Stat