Astronaut Candidates Taste Zero G
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NASA's 2004 class of astronaut candidates and some JAXA astronauts tumble during one of a series of reduced gravity sessions provided by special parabolas flown by a KC-135 aircraft over the Gulf of Mexico. Randolph J. (Randy) Bresnik, pilot candidate, and Shannon Walker, mission specialist candidate, are in the foreground. CREDIT: |
NASA's newest astronaut candidates experienced their first taste of zero gravity and are now preparing to make their first jet flights without the company of instructors.
The 11 members of 2004 astronaut class and three astronauts from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) experienced small periods of weightlessness, as well as lunar and Martian gravity, during an introductory flight aboard NASA's KC-135 aircraft this month.
"Flying in the KC-135 really gave us a small glimpse of what it's like flying in space," said astronaut candidate Randy Bresnik, a Marine Corps major and pilot, during a telephone interview. "It's quite a euphoric feeling, escaping gravity."
The flight marked the culmination of several weeks of flight training, during which time the Johnson Space Center-based class became qualified to fly theT-38 jet aircraft used by NASA to maintain aviation proficiency in astronauts.
"When your flying in a jet aircraft, everything goes much faster," mission specialist candidate Shannon Walker, a NASA astrophysicist who owns a private airplane, told SPACE.com.
Walker said the recent weightless flight was a welcome group experience for the astronaut class after weeks of one-on-one training with T-38 instructors.
"It really brought us together as a class," she added.
During their two-hour flight, the astronaut class and Japanese astronauts experienced 44 parabolas, 40 of which were true zero gravity arcs. The remaining four parabolas were split in half, with two flown at Martian gravity (about one-third that of Earth) and the others at lunar gravity (one-sixth that of Earth).
"It's going to take a long time to wipe the smiles off our faces," Bresnik said.
Up next for the astronaut class is shuttle systems training to familiarize the candidates with the intricacies of NASA's space shuttle fleet.
"It's going to be months and months of training because of the complexity of the system," Bresnik said, adding that the time spent studying one system of the space shuttle could equal the amount of time he's spent in ground training for an entire aircraft.
That training is currently scheduled to run into December, the astronaut candidates said.
While the new astronaut class trained on T-38 aircraft and experienced weightlessness, NASA mission controllers, space station astronauts and the crew of the Discovery STS-114 shuttle mission conducted an eight-hour simulation to rehearse docking the spacecraft with the International Space Station. The flight dress rehearsal was not lost on Walker, Bresnik and their candidate comrades.
"I think it really shows us the complexity of spaceflight," Walker said, adding that the joint shuttle-space station simulation showed that NASA is forging ahead with its return to flight operations. "There's always more training to do."
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