NASA’s astronaut corps has
long been a symbol of American exploration and drive, but as the agency turns
50 the cadre of U.S. space explorers faces some difficult challenges in the
years to come.
With NASA’s 50th
anniversary approaching on Oct. 1, its astronauts today are looking ahead
at the looming 2010 retirement of the agency’s aging space shuttle fleet
and at least a four-year gap before the replacement spaceship - the Orion Crew
Exploration Vehicle - takes flight with spaceflyers aboard. There is even worry
that NASA astronauts won’t
have rides to the International Space Station during the hiatus unless the
agency gets a vital waiver to buy seats aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft after
2011.
It’s enough to give some
veteran astronauts food for thought on what the future holds for them beyond
the shuttle, while others remain committed to the long-duration missions that
will be the only available rides until NASA renews manned lunar treks by 2020.
“One of the things that
you’re seeing now is exactly what happened with Apollo,” said Roger
Launius, a former NASA historian and senior curator with the
Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air
and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. “As people began to see that program
wind down literally…astronauts were beginning to leave the corps.”
NASA’s Astronaut Office is
doggedly working to preserve its base of experienced spaceflyers and planning
to swell its ranks with a new group of up to 15 astronauts in summer 2009.
“We’ll certainly have
people retire as they get older, and they decide to go off and do another
career. We’ll see a lot of that happening,” said four-time shuttle
flyer Steve Lindsey, chief of NASA’s Astronaut Office. “What I
don’t want to see is us hit 2010 and all of our experience walk out the
door.”
There are about 90 astronauts on
NASA’s flight roster today, with less than six still waiting for that
first assignment to a space-bound crew, Lindsey told SPACE.com.
Somewhere between 10 and 15 new astronauts may join up in the new class, though
the actual number remains to be seen, he added.
“One of my objectives is to
get everyone in the office flown by 2010,” Lindsey said. “And my
current projection is we’re going to be easily able to do that.”
The goal, he said, is to ensure
NASA’s astronaut corps is as experienced as possible before the shuttle
fleet retires and ready to withstand the departure of retiring spaceflyers, yet
still retain enough veterans to lead the incoming 2009 class of astronaut
candidates.
“They said the astronaut
office may decrease in size from 90 to about 60,” said astronaut
biographer Michael Cassutt, author of
“Who’s Who in Space.” The drop, Cassutt
added, would follow a similar pattern to that seen during the Apollo-shuttle
transition.
Heavy decisions
While some short missions are
expected during
Orion test flights, the majority of post-shuttle spaceflights will be
long-duration expeditions to the International Space Station and, ultimately, the
moon. But the years of training for those flights, which include long trips to
Russia and other countries, can be challenging for families at home.
“I think a lot of people in
our office are looking into their hearts to see if they want to stay on, and if
they stay on do they want to fly long duration missions,” said astronaut
Mike Fincke, who is training for his second six-month
station flight as Expedition 18 commander this fall. “I know for me, that
this is definitely where I want to be and hopefully I’ll be able to get
back in at the end of that long line and back up.”
To make long-duration spaceflights
more palatable, NASA is working with its international partners to streamline
space station training wherever possible, Lindsey said. That includes assigning
astronauts to prime crew slots before they’ve ever served on a backup
team, then folding their backup training in as part of their primary mission
preparations, he added.
“We’ve
been able to reduce the training template, the amount of time from assignment
to launch,” Lindsey said, adding that the training flow should now
typically run about 2 1/2 years.
But some veteran astronauts have
already taken their leave, such as last month’s retirement of teacher-astronaut
Barbara Morgan and the May departure of spacewalker James Reilly, II, who
left the corps after three spaceflights, five spacewalks and 13 years at NASA
“I had three excellent flights
and three great teams,” said Reilly, adding that NASA astronauts had a
challenge ahead in crossing the gap between shuttle and Orion. “I look
backward on that, and we had a lot more folks that needed to fly and I had done
everything that I had pretty much thought I could do as an astronaut.”
Echoes of the past
NASA’s astronaut corps has
faced gaps in U.S. spaceflights before, most notably between the Apollo era of
the late 1960s and 1970s and the 1981 debut of the space shuttle Columbia.
“When you think of a whole
cadre of people whose basic objective is to fly in space and do particularly
useful work in space, as many of us did, that’s a long time to wait
around and spin your wheels,” said former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, who retired from spaceflight in 1986.
Garriott joined the agency as one of the
first six scientist-spaceflyers in 1965, flew to the U.S. space station Skylab
aboard an Apollo capsule in 1973, then worked and waited for 10 years before
flying aboard the shuttle Columbia in 1983. During the gap between Apollo and
shuttle, he took time off to teach and got involved in early development work
for what would evolve into the International Space Station among other
assignments.
“So I think that that might
very well be what some of the current number of astronauts [will do],” Garriott said. “There’s plenty of work to do.
I’m sure NASA will assure them of that.”
The real challenge for NASA,
stressed Launius, will be to maintain the right balance
of astronaut skills to meet demands for the fading shuttle program and rising
Orion project, as well as the proper mix of veterans and new flyers.
The road ahead
NASA’s astronaut corps has
changed since the first seven U.S. spaceflyers were announced in April 1959.
Its members have shifted from steely-eyed rocket test pilots to a diverse group
of men, women, military pilots, engineers and scientists, and the trend will
likely continue.
“It is going to change the
culture in several ways. There will be much less emphasis in high performance
piloting,” said Cassutt, adding that the switch
stems from NASA’s move from a winged reusable spaceship to capsule craft.
Gone too is some of the perceived
competition among today’s astronauts, who during the shuttle era could
expect ongoing launches as opposed to the limited number of Mercury, Gemini and
Apollo flights earlier in the program, Cassutt said.
And access to space is getting easier by the year.
“The system exists where you
can write a check and go to space, you just have to pass the physical,”
said Cassutt. “In essence, you’re seeing
something that is a little bit like the end of an era.”
Garriott is among the first to concede Cassutt’s point. His grown 46-year-old son Richard, a
multi-millionaire computer game developer, is paying $30 million to ride a
Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station under a deal
brokered by the Virginia-based firm Space Adventures. Richard Garriott will be the sixth private citizen to pay his way
to the space station since 2001.
But despite the changing nature of
the astronaut corps, it will likely retain the camaraderie and teamwork that
has governed its tight-knit crews and their exploits, astronauts said.
“I really miss the
people,” Reilly said. “I look back on those 13 years as being the
best 13 years of my life.”
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