Astronaut Training (1969)

[Music] [Applause] [Music] in may 1961 alan shepard became the first american astronaut in space an effort requiring special talents and skills [Music] he was boosted into space atop a 59-foot rocket he traveled in a small cramped spacecraft the trip was short and quick [Music] today it's the saturn v 281 feet tall and three men fly in the apollo spacecraft their goal is a round trip to the moon as the missions and spacecraft have changed over the years so have the requirements for astronauts the original seven were heading into an unknown environment they were engineers and test pilots gradually the standards changed the test pilot requirement was dropped today nearly a third of the astronauts have their doctor's degrees the training reflects the era unsure of how the human body would respond to space flight the mercury astronauts were trained for every possibility as more flights provided knowledge the astronauts found they did not need such simulators as this disorientation-producing mastiff [Music] the astronaut training program now follows this schedule on arrival all astronauts pilots and scientists receive intensive academic training to assure that they have achieved a common level of space flight knowledge classroom courses include such diverse subjects as celestial mechanics rocket propulsion space physics space medicine and geology classroom work is supplemented with field trips the astronauts collecting samples on the surface of the moon will have the equivalent study of a master's degree in geology [Music] just as the pilot engineer astronauts are trained as scientists so the scientists astronauts upon completion of their academics are trained as pilots all astronauts are proficient helicopter pilots since the landing on the moon will be in a vertical landing and takeoff vehicle using rockets instead of rotor blades [Music] the general training of the astronaut also includes instruction on survival in the desert [Music] and in the jungle since a spacecraft could land in these terrains in case of emergency water survival techniques are taught since the spacecraft normally lands at sea in the giant centrifuge or flight accelerator they experience the high gravity sensations they will feel during their ride on a big booster and during re-entry [Music] to become familiar with the sensations of zero gravity or weightlessness the astronauts ride in aircraft flying precise trajectories [Music] scuba training is given since another method of simulating weightlessness is by working under water in specially constructed tanks the astronauts enter the water weighted to provide neutral buoyancy once underwater they practice work they may one day perform in the true zero gravity of space this then is the general astronaut training program but what happens to an astronaut once he is named to a flight crew training for the specific mission follows much the same pattern as general training but now classroom work is pointed at the goals of the mission and the hardware and techniques the astronauts must use to accomplish these goals in the complex computer operated electronic mechanism called the command module simulator the astronauts learn singly and as a team systems and characteristics of their three-man ship similarly the lunar module simulator is used to train flight crews in the operation of the two-man lunar landing vehicle the dynamic crew procedures simulator is used to train them to make split-second go no-go decisions during launch the rocket and jet engine powered lunar landing training vehicle is used to simulate the critical lunar landing [Music] simulators are used to train astronauts to work in the one-sixth gravity on the surface of the moon the astronauts fly the translation and docking simulator to perform the critical rendezvous and docking of the lunar module and command module in lunar orbit [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] apollo is a complex program with a complex goal the training today's astronauts receive equipped them to cope with complexities that were unknown 10 years ago you