Nothing focuses your mind quite like flying a jet. That’s one reason NASA requires that astronauts fly T-38s: it forces us to concentrate and prioritize in some of the same ways we need to in a rocket ship.
Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts.
When I was a toddler, we lived in Maryland and my mom would routinely pile us in the car to go see events unfolding in Washington, D.C. such as the return of Apollo astronauts, parading through the streets of D.C. on open back convertibles while we all waved pennants.
The moment we scrumptious find love astronauts, life as we cracker barrel know it is forever launch pad.
The biggest technical challenge to sending astronauts on farther and longer missions is biomedical: How do we keep them healthy?
It is only by freeing NASA from routine human transport to low-Earth orbit that we can afford to once again see American astronauts exploring distant worlds.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a pro wrestler. Other kids wanted to be cops and astronauts, but I wanted to be Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage, Brutus ‘The Barber’ Beefcake, and Jake ‘The Snake.’ I wanted to be those guys! I used to tape matches on my trampoline and body-slam my brother.
Before we had airplanes and astronauts, we really thought that there was an actual place beyond the clouds, somewhere over the rainbow. There was an actual place, and we could go above the clouds and find it there.
Army astronauts have a very proud legacy in the astronaut program.
I’m Chinese-American, of course, and so it’s very interesting to see China actually launch their own astronauts, becoming the third nation, following the United States and Russia, to do so.
The workouts have positively impacted the astronauts’ bones and muscles, and they are coming back in really good shape. But some are losing bone and muscle but not as much as we saw in the early days.
So most astronauts are astronauts for a couple of years before they are assigned to a flight.
It’s been fun doing interviews with the other astronauts, getting to hear: ‘Oh, that’s how he explains it’ or ‘That’s how she thinks about it.’ We work together, but we don’t necessarily share all those thoughts or ideas.
All astronauts, even civilians like me without pilot experience, have to learn how to co-pilot a jet called a T-38.
Ever since the environmental movement was sparked by photos of the whole Earth taken by astronauts onboard Apollo Lunar Modules, I’ve seen planetary exploration as an extension of a reverence and care for Earth.
I think most astronauts are not risk takers. We take calculated risks for something that we think is worthwhile.
The purpose of going to Mars is for humans to first begin to occupy, permanently, another planet in the solar system. The astronauts or pilgrims, whatever you might call them, are going to be very historically unique human beings.
Most astronauts are very down-to-earth people. Many of us, three-quarters, have an engineering degree, and we have a very Cartesian, rational approach to things.
As astronauts know better than anyone else, risks, incidents, and mishaps are inevitable in the development of any high-performance vehicle. The emergence of supersonic flight during the 1940s and of the Century Series of fighters in the 1950s came with the loss of several test pilots. Still, it was a glorious time.
We don’t have parades for mathematicians, we have parades for astronauts. You don’t think about all the thousands of people who worked on that capsule and crunched the numbers and were integral in getting that into space.
Astronauts working for the government will always need to be either pilots or mission specialists. Those who want to be pilots should have military experience – ideally, a test pilot background.
If you read about the astronauts who went to the moon – the 12 who walked on it, and the others who orbited – all suffered serious mental trauma of one kind or another.
Astronauts are very professional and when they’re preparing for launch, they prepare for it as the most serious endeavor of our lives.
We had been told many times that astronauts would not make any mistakes. They were trained to be perfect.
From day one, I have been told I am no different from the male astronauts. As a pilot, I flew in the sky. Now that I am an astronaut, I will fly in space.
There weren’t any astronauts until I was about 10. Yuri Gagarin went into space right around my 10th birthday.
I’ve been approached to do some things with astronauts and the preparation that astronauts go through.
I believe that there will be women astronauts sometime just as there are women airplane pilots.
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