Training for Space
In the U.S.A., both pilots and mission specialists spend one year of general training at the Johnson Space Center in Texas. Cosmonauts train at the Y. A. Gagarin Centre, near Moscow, Russia.
At the Johnson Space Center, the training has several parts. One part is classroom work. Students take special courses in topics related to space travel.
Another part is flight training in jet planes. This gives student pilots a chance to practise flying. Students who are training to become mission specialists do not pilot a jet during take-off and landing. But while the jet is in the air, they spend time at the controls.
Students also spend time on special jets that dive through the air. For about 30 seconds, the astronauts feel as if they do not weigh anything at all. This prepares them for the way they will feel when they are in space – weightless.
Survival training is also part of the programme. Students learn how to survive in the forest or in the water. They do this in case they have to make an emergency landing on Earth.
Early cosmonauts began with two months of very difficult activities that included high diving, skiing, wrestling, and parachuting. They also had difficult training in machines that made them experience extreme heat, gravity, and spinning motion.
As scientists have learned more about space, cosmonauts no longer need to be tested in such difficult ways. Now cosmonauts spend most of their time studying spacecraft and working in machines that are like imitation spacecraft.
During mission training, students study the cockpit of a spacecraft and are asked to perform certain tasks as if they were in space. A student who does well in all this training may be accepted as an astronaut or cosmonaut.
