What awaits astronauts selection 2017?
According to the information published on May 4, more than 30 people have sent all the necessary documents for the selection to the 2017 cosmonauts. Until July 14, the last day for accepting documents, two more and a little months, and the intrigue remains - how many applications will be submitted in comparison with the last set of 2012? On the one hand, on sensations, the space became more interested. On the other hand, sad news such as the reduction of the Russian crew of the ISS and the departure of experienced astronauts from the squadron can scare someone away. In the meantime, documents are being received, it's time to see what those who will pass the selection will do.
Training on the Soyuz simulator, frame from ESA video
The first astronauts and astronauts were good - the most successful could go on a flight a little more than a year after enrolling in the squad. For Gagarin, this period was a year and a month, Titov - a year and five months, and for Alan Shepard - two years and one month. But now you have to wait for your turn to fly for years. The volume of what you need to learn (and pass on this exam) has increased. But, most importantly, there is a long line of those who came to the squad before you and have not yet flown. In the Russian cosmonaut corps, Nikolai Tikhonov is still waiting for his turn from the 2006 set. And due to the fact that now in the Soyuz in the coming years there will be only one cosmonaut, while they have already appointed experienced and flying ones, which prolongs Nicholas's expectation into obscurity. In general, if you think about it, the specificity of the work by an astronaut is that your flight depends on a lot of events that cannot be counted in advance or even on accidents. Astronaut Dick Slayton from the first American squad had been waiting for his flight for sixteen years, and this is not the limit. Astronaut Don Lind constantly got into canceled missions or was appointed as a backup for “disappointingly healthy” people and flew after 19 years in the squadron. And the waiting record belongs to the only cosmonaut of independent Ukraine, Leonid Kadenyuk, who was able to go to space in 21 years and 3 months after being enlisted in the Soviet cosmonaut detachment in 1976. And a very large number of people could not wait, retiring for health or other reasons. For 2017, the waiting period is projected at 15 years, a third more than expected for 2012, of which no one has yet flown.
But one should not think that staying in the cosmonaut detachment is a lazy idle doing while waiting for their turn. On the contrary, the work will be higher than the roof, and you will not be able to tinker on it. The first two years after enrollment in the squadron will be devoted to general space training - flight theory, control systems, navigation, the principles of creating spaceships, launch vehicles and launch complexes, basic knowledge of the ship on which they will fly, and initial skills of working with its systems. After the course there will be a state exam, and it is not recommended to pass it less than “excellently” - the title of cosmonaut may not be assigned and, at best, sent to additional classes.
')
The second stage - training in specialization groups, takes from two years. Previously, there were many directions, but now there is one specialization - the ISS. The third stage - training in the crew. At this level, the crew has already been formed, and until the flight remains relatively little, about two years. But the need to study does not disappear anywhere - cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov spoke in a recent interview about 120 exams. At later stages, more practice on the Soyuz and ISS simulators. As a result, the astronaut will know both his ship, and the ISS, and experiments on a flight at a sufficient level. It was possible to prepare crews for a relatively short program on space shuttle flights, having worked out a list of operations for three weeks, but this approach does not work for semi-annual missions on the ISS - it is necessary to produce a well-trained specialist.
Parallel training are special training. Obviously, to work in weightlessness, it would be very helpful to feel it at least for a while. To do this, there are special laboratory planes of weightlessness. Movement in a parabola allows you to create a weightlessness of about thirty seconds and train.
Opposite weightlessness centrifuge training is carried out from the very beginning of the profession of an astronaut. When placed into orbit, the astronauts will experience about 3 “same”, with a normal landing - 4-5, with a ballistic descent about 9, and the response of the emergency rescue system in the event of an accident at the start will give a short-term overload in the region of 10 “same”, and all this need to be ready. At the same time, they simply will not tolerate overloads - they will check the sharpness and visual field, as well as the reaction time in the booth.
Relatively much time is devoted to training for survival in various locations. Despite the fact that for a very long time the ships landed in a given area (in the extreme case, in a regular place of abnormal ballistic descent in the same Kazakh steppe), in the event of a serious accident, you will have to go where it will turn out, and nobody wants the astronauts to die without equipment in the snow, as it was very improbably shown in Time of the First. On the contrary, they must print out emergency supplies and remain alive until the arrival of rescuers.
For winter planting has its own training base in the suburbs.
Most of the Earth’s surface is occupied by the oceans, and, despite the fact that the Soyuz can stay on the water for a long time, evacuation still needs to be worked out.
In addition, there is training for the desert, and recently in the training program added survival in mountainous terrain.
And if Belyaev and Leonov did not dare to evacuate the helicopter from the hover mode, now this method is surely being worked out.
The work of an astronaut requires to maintain clarity of thought in conditions of mortal danger. Therefore, the selection is welcome experience of aviation, parachute jumps or extreme sports. Already in a detachment under the controlled danger of a parachute jump, the ability not to lose your head is tested and trained. In a free fall, it is necessary to solve fairly simple tasks, a record is kept, and its results often surprise the subject. The astronauts' stories tell how people for some reason started to solve the card again or, for example, said something like "and this I will decide later."
NASA uses T-38 supersonic training aircraft to train astronauts and fly them around the country. In Russia, less time is allocated for flight training, and subsonic L-39s are used for flights, but flight experience was not completely excluded from the same considerations of decision making under controlled hazard conditions.
An interesting and not particularly well-known type of special space training is the training of astronauts in photographing and videotaping. A special plane rises to a height, and astronauts learn to take pictures of the earth from the air, which is not very different from photographing from orbit.
Even if the flight program does not have a spacewalk, it may be in emergency use. And as the first attempts showed, it would be very difficult at least to do the work outside the station in a spacesuit without preparation. Therefore, it is better to practice in advance. As it turned out, the best training is a hydrolaboratory, where you can create so-called neutral buoyancy under water. It does not disappear, and working, for example, upside down will be uncomfortable, but the skills of moving on the rails and working with tools will be most similar to those that are required in real flight.
In order for the flight to be truly safe, the astronauts "die" tens and hundreds of times in training in simulators, first-hand understanding how and in what order they should react to arising emergency situations, so that the seemingly innocent and frivolous accident did not cause your real death.
But in the cosmonaut detachment, you can look at the spacecraft that is still being developed. And it's not even easy to see, but to take part in its development.
In addition, you have to travel a lot. Chris Hadfield, in his memoirs, estimates time for business trips at 70%, Pavel Vinogradov says that "the family does not see the cosmonaut for years." The ISS is an international station, so when preparing for the flight, you need to undergo a monthly internship in Russia and the United States, as well as a two-week trip in Europe and Japan, and this is only the bare minimum. Foreign astronauts can spend half a year in Star City every year, and ours are also where to go.
Well, we can not forget the task of public relations. A flying cosmonaut can be involved in a wide variety of activities, and those who are not flying can even act as guides in the Cosmonaut Training Center.
Training on the Soyuz simulator, frame from ESA video
Who is the outermost space?
The first astronauts and astronauts were good - the most successful could go on a flight a little more than a year after enrolling in the squad. For Gagarin, this period was a year and a month, Titov - a year and five months, and for Alan Shepard - two years and one month. But now you have to wait for your turn to fly for years. The volume of what you need to learn (and pass on this exam) has increased. But, most importantly, there is a long line of those who came to the squad before you and have not yet flown. In the Russian cosmonaut corps, Nikolai Tikhonov is still waiting for his turn from the 2006 set. And due to the fact that now in the Soyuz in the coming years there will be only one cosmonaut, while they have already appointed experienced and flying ones, which prolongs Nicholas's expectation into obscurity. In general, if you think about it, the specificity of the work by an astronaut is that your flight depends on a lot of events that cannot be counted in advance or even on accidents. Astronaut Dick Slayton from the first American squad had been waiting for his flight for sixteen years, and this is not the limit. Astronaut Don Lind constantly got into canceled missions or was appointed as a backup for “disappointingly healthy” people and flew after 19 years in the squadron. And the waiting record belongs to the only cosmonaut of independent Ukraine, Leonid Kadenyuk, who was able to go to space in 21 years and 3 months after being enlisted in the Soviet cosmonaut detachment in 1976. And a very large number of people could not wait, retiring for health or other reasons. For 2017, the waiting period is projected at 15 years, a third more than expected for 2012, of which no one has yet flown.
What to do while waiting?
But one should not think that staying in the cosmonaut detachment is a lazy idle doing while waiting for their turn. On the contrary, the work will be higher than the roof, and you will not be able to tinker on it. The first two years after enrollment in the squadron will be devoted to general space training - flight theory, control systems, navigation, the principles of creating spaceships, launch vehicles and launch complexes, basic knowledge of the ship on which they will fly, and initial skills of working with its systems. After the course there will be a state exam, and it is not recommended to pass it less than “excellently” - the title of cosmonaut may not be assigned and, at best, sent to additional classes.
')
The second stage - training in specialization groups, takes from two years. Previously, there were many directions, but now there is one specialization - the ISS. The third stage - training in the crew. At this level, the crew has already been formed, and until the flight remains relatively little, about two years. But the need to study does not disappear anywhere - cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov spoke in a recent interview about 120 exams. At later stages, more practice on the Soyuz and ISS simulators. As a result, the astronaut will know both his ship, and the ISS, and experiments on a flight at a sufficient level. It was possible to prepare crews for a relatively short program on space shuttle flights, having worked out a list of operations for three weeks, but this approach does not work for semi-annual missions on the ISS - it is necessary to produce a well-trained specialist.
Parallel training are special training. Obviously, to work in weightlessness, it would be very helpful to feel it at least for a while. To do this, there are special laboratory planes of weightlessness. Movement in a parabola allows you to create a weightlessness of about thirty seconds and train.
Opposite weightlessness centrifuge training is carried out from the very beginning of the profession of an astronaut. When placed into orbit, the astronauts will experience about 3 “same”, with a normal landing - 4-5, with a ballistic descent about 9, and the response of the emergency rescue system in the event of an accident at the start will give a short-term overload in the region of 10 “same”, and all this need to be ready. At the same time, they simply will not tolerate overloads - they will check the sharpness and visual field, as well as the reaction time in the booth.
Relatively much time is devoted to training for survival in various locations. Despite the fact that for a very long time the ships landed in a given area (in the extreme case, in a regular place of abnormal ballistic descent in the same Kazakh steppe), in the event of a serious accident, you will have to go where it will turn out, and nobody wants the astronauts to die without equipment in the snow, as it was very improbably shown in Time of the First. On the contrary, they must print out emergency supplies and remain alive until the arrival of rescuers.
For winter planting has its own training base in the suburbs.
Most of the Earth’s surface is occupied by the oceans, and, despite the fact that the Soyuz can stay on the water for a long time, evacuation still needs to be worked out.
In addition, there is training for the desert, and recently in the training program added survival in mountainous terrain.
And if Belyaev and Leonov did not dare to evacuate the helicopter from the hover mode, now this method is surely being worked out.
The work of an astronaut requires to maintain clarity of thought in conditions of mortal danger. Therefore, the selection is welcome experience of aviation, parachute jumps or extreme sports. Already in a detachment under the controlled danger of a parachute jump, the ability not to lose your head is tested and trained. In a free fall, it is necessary to solve fairly simple tasks, a record is kept, and its results often surprise the subject. The astronauts' stories tell how people for some reason started to solve the card again or, for example, said something like "and this I will decide later."
NASA uses T-38 supersonic training aircraft to train astronauts and fly them around the country. In Russia, less time is allocated for flight training, and subsonic L-39s are used for flights, but flight experience was not completely excluded from the same considerations of decision making under controlled hazard conditions.
An interesting and not particularly well-known type of special space training is the training of astronauts in photographing and videotaping. A special plane rises to a height, and astronauts learn to take pictures of the earth from the air, which is not very different from photographing from orbit.
Even if the flight program does not have a spacewalk, it may be in emergency use. And as the first attempts showed, it would be very difficult at least to do the work outside the station in a spacesuit without preparation. Therefore, it is better to practice in advance. As it turned out, the best training is a hydrolaboratory, where you can create so-called neutral buoyancy under water. It does not disappear, and working, for example, upside down will be uncomfortable, but the skills of moving on the rails and working with tools will be most similar to those that are required in real flight.
In order for the flight to be truly safe, the astronauts "die" tens and hundreds of times in training in simulators, first-hand understanding how and in what order they should react to arising emergency situations, so that the seemingly innocent and frivolous accident did not cause your real death.
But in the cosmonaut detachment, you can look at the spacecraft that is still being developed. And it's not even easy to see, but to take part in its development.
In addition, you have to travel a lot. Chris Hadfield, in his memoirs, estimates time for business trips at 70%, Pavel Vinogradov says that "the family does not see the cosmonaut for years." The ISS is an international station, so when preparing for the flight, you need to undergo a monthly internship in Russia and the United States, as well as a two-week trip in Europe and Japan, and this is only the bare minimum. Foreign astronauts can spend half a year in Star City every year, and ours are also where to go.
Well, we can not forget the task of public relations. A flying cosmonaut can be involved in a wide variety of activities, and those who are not flying can even act as guides in the Cosmonaut Training Center.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/370449/
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