AL WORDEN, APOLLO 15 COMMAND MODULE PILOT, ON THE MOMENT OF LIFT-OFF
Talk us through that moment when you’re sitting on top of the Saturn V, the biggest rocket that’s ever been built, and you’re sitting right on the top about to go.
We got in our spacecraft about 7.30 in the morning for a 9.30 launch. We got out there and of course it was dark. We got inside the spacecraft and it was all chilled down. The air-conditioning system was down low, -45°F, as a matter of fact, that’s what it was set at. We couldn’t see outside, it was dark inside. All we had was an instrument panel to see, and we were just sitting there and I went to sleep. What else are you going to do? You’re waiting for the next thing to happen. It’s pretty doggone boring, just sitting there doing nothing, I’ll tell you.
Domingo Gonsales didn’t go to sleep, he was having a fantastic time…
He didn’t have a chance to sleep. He had to control those geese…
The famous Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl tells us:
Between the stimulus and the response there is a space. And in that space lies our power and our freedom.*
Whatever the ‘right stuff’ is, it lies somewhere in that space.
The reality of space travel has meant that astronauts have some pretty clearly defined qualities and characteristics. At some point you’ve probably wondered about whether you have this ‘right stuff’ – ‘that indefinable, unutterable integral stuff’. In theory, anyone, including you, could climb on board a rocket and take off, and unless it blew up you’d still be alive. But it’s how you behave and cope with whatever the universe throws at you when you’re up there that’s the question. When the hull of the space station is breached and you hear the slow hiss of air venting into space; when your spacesuit helmet fills with water during an EVA; when the Saturn V rocket experiences an unknown electrical failure on launch. Your hand is on the abort handle. Do you turn it? You have a gap between stimulus and response in which you are in control. How will you respond? With what kind of stuff? Praying will only get you so far.
‘Dear God. Please don’t let me fuck up.’
Alan Shepard’s test pilot prayer**,
Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
ARE YOU CHUCK YEAGER, TEST PILOT & ‘RIGHT STUFF’ LEGEND?
Tomorrow morning you’re about to fly faster than any human has flown before in an experimental rocket plane (Bell X-1),to explore the very limits of what is considered even possible. What you choose reveals a lot about you…
The Japanese Space Agency JAXA have perhaps the most brutal right stuff test for their astronaut candidates. It’s a searching examination of character. Candidates are observed in isolation for a week and must quietly and methodically, in the time allotted, fold a thousand origami paper cranes* while trying to avoid any deterioration in their craftsmanship. The paper cranes are taken away and analysed to see if they have varied over time, which would be a sign of impatience under stress. The one thousandth crane should be as precise and elegant as the first.
THE RIGHT NATIONALITY
Most of the qualities that will affect your route to becoming an astronaut will depend on things beyond your control, like your nationality for example – does your country have an active human space programme? If you’re from America, Canada, Japan, Russia, Europe or China then you’ve already got an advantage. Of course, there are ways around that. The NASA astronauts Mike Foale and Piers Sellers were both born in the UK, which at the time had no investment in human space flight, but had American citizenship. Remember, you could always marry someone from the nationality of your choice. Preferably the person who is in charge of choosing astronauts.
Where you’re from is going to determine what you’re called too. ‘Astronaut’ from the Greek ‘Star Sailor’, if you’re American or European, although the French space traveller is called a ‘Spationaut’. ‘Cosmonaut’ if you’re Russian, ‘kosmos’ meaning ‘universe’, and ‘Taikonaut’ if you’re Chinese, ‘Taikong’ meaning ‘great emptiness’. And who could forget the ‘Afronauts’ – Zambia’s 1960s space programme, with their rudimentary training methods and rockets made from oil drums, run by the antic visionary Edward Makuka Nkoloso.*
Your next problem is: who’s hiring? At the time of writing, the latest NASA group of astronaut candidates has just been announced, while ESA’s last group, known as the ‘Shenanigans’, was picked in 2009.** Canada have been hiring this year. You just have to keep checking your local national space agency websites.
THE RIGHT LIFE SKILLS
Then there are the things you can do something about: are you a good swimmer? Do you have 20:20 vision? These were both problems that faced NASA astronaut Mike Massimino, but he made sure he got them sorted. Can you fly an aircraft? Are you in the military? Do you have a doctorate, or a degree in a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subject, or just a 2:2 in English and Drama? Money can help bypass many obstacles. Are you an Internet billionaire, for example? Being an Internet billionaire generally helps. The entrepreneur Richard Garriott and others managed to buy a trip to the ISS, but it’s not cheap. What about your personality? I’ve never met an astronaut I haven’t liked. There’s a special thread that runs through all of them, a temperament that they have in common. Like the stars seen from earth they have a twinkle, but like stars seen from space they are constant and unwavering.
Being chosen as an astronaut is only the beginning of the story. What follows is years of training, the constant threat of being grounded for a million reasons and all this with no guarantee of a flight.
THE RIGHT STUFF FOR WHAT?
The job description of the astronaut is constantly changing. The Project Mercury capsule that graces the front of my 1960s Ladybird Exploring Space book was designed for a single test pilot, like a human cannonball, to briefly poke our heads above the atmosphere, to show we could do it. The Gemini spacecraft was designed for two men working together for several days, and involved egress from the spacecraft and docking manoeuvres – a rehearsal for Apollo. The Apollo astronauts had to be test pilots, explorers and scientists, visiting a new world. The Shuttle astronauts had to be electricians and telescope repairmen too – fixing the broken Hubble Space Telescope became one of the Shuttle era’s defining missions. And now on board the International Space Station, days are spent running a battery of scientific experiments, as well as conducting public relations exercises and carrying out the symbolic role of maintaining our remotest human outpost. Perhaps with the advent of space tourism the astronaut’s job will be simply to have a good time and enjoy the view.
But for now at least, the selection and training remain rigorous.
President Eisenhower created NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, specifically as a civilian organization whose purpose was to wrestle the control of space exploration away from the military. NASA opened its doors for business on the 1 October 1958. A few weeks later, a band of engineers led by Robert R. Gilruth called the Space Task Group was created to formally instigate a manned space programme. With it, Project Mercury was born, named after the Roman god of travellers, eloquence, trading, thieving, skill and luck. Top of the agenda was the selection of the newly termed ‘astronauts’. A group of flight surgeons, psychologists and psychiatrists would identify and hunt down America’s finest humans. It’s here we see the astronaut’s job description clearly defined for the first time:
1 To survive; that is, to demonstrate the ability of man to fly in space and to return safely
2 To perform; that is, to demonstrate man’s capacity to act usefully under conditions of space flight
3 To serve as a backup for the automatic controls and instrumentation; that is, to add reliability to the system
4 To serve as a scientific observer; that is, to go beyond what instruments and satellites can observe and report
5 To serve as an engineering observer and, acting as a true test pilot, to improve the flight system and its components
THE RIGHT SEARCH
Pilots, balloonists, submariners, deep-sea divers, scientists, polar explorers and mountain climbers were all thrown into the mix. YOU might have been just what they were looking for. It was Eisenhower himself who made the executive decision that the first group of astronauts would be selected from America’s finest test pilots. As well as the obvious skills and qualities that test pilots possessed in flying experimental high-performance aircraft, there was also the ease of access to military records and national security issues. It was decided that the pilots would need to have a minimum of 1500 hours flight time in high-performance jets, would be below five feet eleven in height so they could fit into the spacecraft, be no more than thirty-nine years old and hold a university degree. There was no time or appetite for an open audition. America was racing against the Soviets to claim the scientific, moral and symbolic higher ground. There were no female jet pilots at the time, so that wasn’t an option. A list of 508 possible male test pilots were identified from military records. Out of that group, 32 passed the further selection criteria and were dispatched to the infamous Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico for the most extensive and invasive medical examinations ever performed on the human body.
THE RIGHT CLINIC
William (Randy) Lovelace II, the founder of the clinic, was one of the pioneers of aviation medicine. Randy was a rare breed of human guinea pig, happy to put himself at risk in order to explore how pilots, and astronauts, could survive the ravages of the stratosphere and outer space. In 1943, he jumped out of a B-17 at over 40,000 feet, testing a new high-altitude oxygen supply system. Leaping out of the plane at -45°C (-50°F), and travelling at 200 mph, his parachute opened automatically, the massive jolt rendering him unconscious and ripping off his gloves leaving his hands exposed to the cold. His left hand, whose inner glove was also removed, froze instantly. As well as surviving, he broke the world parachute altitude record in the process. It’s worth noting this was the first time he’d ever jumped out of an aeroplane.
Lovelace and his staff designed a week of comprehensive and intimate evaluations for the selected group. But how do you test for the unknown? What are you testing for? And how do you know when you’ve found it?
Every nook and cranny was scrutinized. Hidden among the impenetrable medical terms, the Lee and Gimlette, the otolaryngological and ballistocardiogram tests, are some of the more eye-watering procedures. There’s the use of a dunking stool device, on which the naked candidate was dropped underwater to measure the volume of the body. The prostate examination was especially violent, apparently causing bleeding from the anus: the instrument, once inside, would spread open allowing doctors to peer inside. One candidate referred to the process as ‘riding the steel eel’. Cold water was pumped into the ears to test for motion sickness. Jugs were carried by the candidates at all times to pee into, to measure hormone levels, and a succession of barium enemas had to be endured. One of the candidates, John Glenn, commented: ‘I didn’t know the human body had so many openings to explore.’ Even a sperm sample had to be given, making for a memorable scene in the film version of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, to observe the effects of radiation on sperm production during space flight.
A less invasive test for you to try is the speech used to check the candidate’s vocal clarity, essential for spacecraft radio communication. This passage was used, which contains every vocal sound in the English language. Please read it out loud now:
You wished to know all about my grandfather. Well, he is nearly ninety-three years old. He dresses himself in an ancient black frock coat, usually minus several buttons; yet he still thinks as swiftly as ever. A long, flowing beard clings to his chin, giving those who observe him a pronounced feeling of the utmost respect. When he speaks his voice is just a bit cracked and quivers a trifle. Twice each day he plays skilfully and with zest upon our small organ. Except in the winter when the ooze or snow or ice prevents, he slowly takes a short walk in the open air each day. We have often urged him to walk more and smoke less, but he always answers, ‘Banana Oil!’ Grandfather likes to be modern in his language.
With the medicals done, it was off to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for physiological stress tests and psychological evaluations. The thirty-one candidates (Jim Lovell had been disqualified) were now assigned letters – A to Z, with the remaining five AA to EE. The physical and physiological tests included:
• Tests in the famous centrifuge that spun the candidate around to measure tolerance to the g-force.
• Treadmill and Harvard Step Test (stepping up and down on a step) to measure fitness.
• A sound chamber test in which the candidate would do mental arithmetic while a 145-decibel siren goes off next to his ear.*
• A heat chamber test to evaluate the physiological performance in 54°C (130°F) heat for two hours with a rectal thermometer inserted.
• An anechoic chamber test in a soundproof dark room to see how they would respond to isolation and sensory deprivation.
• A ‘complex behaviour simulator’ known as the ‘idiot box’ in which candidates had to respond to signals by pushing the correct buttons and switches.
• The Flack overshoot test. The idea is to hold the mercury column at 40mm by blowing into a tube on a single breath. If it drops below 40mm the clock is stopped.
• The cold pressor test – can you keep your feet in a bucket of iced water for seven minutes? Your blood pressure and pulse taken before/during/after. This was the only test the candidates didn’t know about so it would be a complete surprise.
• Equilibrium chair test – the candidate has to maintain their balance on a chair mounted on two hydraulic cylinders, ‘counteracting pitch-and-roll disturbances’. Easy enough if you enjoy balancing on your chair at your desk, but try to do it blindfolded.
• Anthropometric studies. Topographic maps were made of each candidate’s body giving very detailed measurements. Lines were drawn on their naked bodies to give contrast to the photographs, which were then sent to an aerial photogrammetry company.
As important as it was to be physically healthy specimens, psychological profiling was and still is important. The candidates were rated over a number of different categories under the supervision of psychiatrists George Ruff and Edwin Levy. These revealing tests included:
• Rorschach Test – By observing the nature of a subject’s associations to ten ambiguous ink blots, the psychologist is able to probe relatively deep levels of the personality. Important information on emotions, conflicts and defence mechanisms can be obtained by analysing what is seen and how it is seen.
• Thematic Apperception Test – The subject is asked to tell stories suggested by a series of pictures. This test yields information about interpersonal relationships on a fairly deep level.
• Draw a Person – By drawing male and female human figures, the subject gives information on his body image and feelings about his place in the world.
• Sentence Completion Test – This is a series of incomplete sentences which are completed by the subject. His choice of conclusions provides further personality data.
• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory – An objective paper-and-pencil test which offers a description of the personality based on responses to a 566-item questionnaire.
• Gordon Personal Profile – Information on five aspects of personality is obtained by asking the subject to choose, from each of seventeen groups of four statements, the one which describes him best and the one which describes him least.
• Edwards Personal Preference Schedule – The subject must choose one statement from each of 225 pairs of self-descriptive statements. This yields scores representing twelve personality dimensions.
• Shipley Person Inventory – A test involving twenty pairs of self-descriptive statements related to psychosomatic problems.
• Outer-Inner Preferences – The subject chooses one statement from each of fifty-two pairs of statements on feelings about activities, things and other people. This measures interest in and dependency on social groups.
• Pensacola Z – By choosing one statement from each of 66 pairs of statements, the subject gives information on ‘authoritarian’ attitudes.
• Officer Effectiveness Inventory – A multiple-choice, self-descriptive test of characteristics related to successful officer performance.
• ‘Who Am I?’ – The subject is asked to write twenty answers to the question: ‘Who am I?’ This is interpreted projectively to give information on identity and perception of social roles.
• Peer Ratings – Each candidate is asked to indicate which of the other members of the group accompanying him through the programme he likes best, which one he would like to accompany him on a two-man mission and which one he would assign to the mission if he could not go himself.
The extraordinary comprehensiveness of these physical and psychological tests left nothing to chance. Even the most minor defect was leapt on. From 508 candidates, seven were ‘outstanding, without reservations’. According to George Ruff, the chosen ones showed very specific characteristics: ‘… psychologically healthy men who are realistically oriented to the world, without unattainable ambitions and consequent neurotic concerns, who are adequate to the demands on them and able to function well without emotional distress.’
These seven men were lined up to meet the press like a new boy band. America’s first astronauts were: G, K, R, S, U, Z and EE.*
‘SHOULD A GIRL BE FIRST IN SPACE?’
So asks the glorious 1960 American magazine Look. Aerobatic aviation hero Betty Skelton is photographed in an iconic silver spacesuit. Glossy Look magazine had arranged a photo essay in which Betty would train alongside the new Mercury astronauts. We see Betty smiling her way through the rigorous training procedure. Look magazine are quick to point out the serious science behind all of this, as well as imagining the perfect candidate: ‘…a flat-chested lightweight, under thirty-five years of age and married… her personality will both soothe and stimulate others on her space team’.
One of the sub-headlines reads: ‘Experts in our space program predict women will be considered – later.’ Those experts were absolutely correct – it would be twenty-three years later before the first American woman flew in space. A flick through the rest of the magazine is illuminating as to at least one reason why. A snapshot of middle-class America in 1960. The adverts remind us just how rigidly defined gender roles were: pristine women in domestic and caring roles surrounded by young children. Men are either shown at work (proper work of course), or being confronted with that other mid-century masculine American fantasy, the Marlboro man cowboy. The space-cowboy.
As the idea of women astronauts began to circulate in the media, as a curiosity more than anything else, new feminized space names were being dreamed up: ‘Astronautrix’, ‘feminaut’, ‘astronette’. But that’s not to say the idea of women in space wasn’t being taken seriously by some. Randy Lovelace had devised a project to look at the question of comparing women against men in terms of their suitability for space travel. Signs were showing that women had various physiological advantages – fewer heart attacks, as well as the physical benefits of being smaller and lighter – and were outperforming men in a variety of studies such as isolation and sensory deprivation. It was Jerrie Cobb, a record-breaking female aviator, who was approached to be the guinea pig and became the first woman to take the identical medical examination as the official Project Mercury men,* passing ‘beyond expectations’. There were, however, plenty of astounding female aviators who might have the ‘right stuff’. In all, twenty-five women completed the Lovelace tests, with thirteen passing, who became known as the First Lady Astronaut Trainees (FLATs) or the Mercury 13.
To date, 60 out of the 553 astronauts have been women. The latest batch of eight NASA astronaut candidates is a 50:50 gender split; the Soviets sent up Valentina Tereshkova as early as 1963 on Vostok 6; and the UK’s first astronaut was Helen Sharman. Sally Ride finally got American women into space in 1983 on STS-7 as a mission specialist, but it was Eileen Collins who became the first astronaut ‘pilot’, something that was celebrated. It was the Shuttle that opened space travel up for everyone.** The Project Mercury capsule could carry one person, Apollo three, but the Space Shuttle was able to fly much bigger crews (seven) which meant that the selection pool could be opened much wider, broadening the role of the astronaut.
CANDIDATE NAME: |
YES |
NO |
Bachelor’s degree in engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science or mathematics* |
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At least 3 years of related, progressively responsible professional experience** OR At least 1000 hours of pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft |
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Distant and near visual acuity correctable to 20/20 in each eye |
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Blood pressure not exceeding 140/90 measured in a sitting position |
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Height between 62 and 75 inches |
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Official SCUBA qualification |
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Swimming 3 lengths of a 25-metre pool without stopping. THEN swimming another 3 lengths of the pool. In a flight suit. And wearing tennis shoes. |
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Treading water continuously for 10 minutes wearing a flight suit |
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Вы говорите по русски? |
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AM I AN ASTRONAUT? |
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TRAVEL GUIDE: THE STEELY EYED MISSILE MAN
Name:
John Aaron
Profession:
EECOM Apollo 12
Claim to fame:
Being in the right place at the right time
On 14 November 1969, four months after the first moon landing, the Apollo 12 Saturn V rocket lifted off once again into the thick blanket clouds of the Florida sky at 11.22 EST. On board were Alan Bean, Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon. One minute after a perfect liftoff, something happened.
Unknown to anyone, the problem had been caused when lightning had struck the rocket as it passed through the clouds. Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell later reflected on the gravity of the situation: ‘… the flight rules dictated an abort. When six million pounds of fully fuelled, freshly launched Saturn 5 begins flying out of control, you don’t wait for engineering analysts to tell you what’s gone wrong. You light the escape rockets at the tip of the booster, accelerate the capsule away from the Saturn and blow the whole wayward missile over the empty Atlantic.’
That’s one option. But they were lucky that John Aaron was on duty in mission control that day. He was the EECOM (Electrical, Environmental and Consumables Manager) flight controller in charge of overseeing the electrical systems, whose job it was to report to the flight director Gerry Griffin. In front of him on the screen the telemetry data from the spacecraft, which moments ago were showing perfect readings, suddenly went wild throwing up patterns of seemingly random numbers. The Command Module had lost power and was now running on emergency batteries, and the resulting warning lights and alarms sent the astronauts and Mission Control into confusion. A split decision had to be made – should they proceed? Or abort and blast the crew to safety and detonate the rocket before it’s too late?
John Aaron was only twenty-six years old. His mother was a minister and his father a cattle farmer. Studying maths and physics, he planned to become a teacher after leaving college like most of his seven sisters, but on the advice of a friend sent off a speculative application to NASA. Without even having to sit an interview he got the job, cutting his teeth on the Gemini programme. He was blessed with a deep curiosity about how things worked, wanting to understand, not just his own specific area of expertise, but how the myriad different systems on a space mission worked together.
Facing a potentially catastrophic situation they had only moments to make the call. Then, for John Aaron, the penny dropped. By pure chance, he recognized this exact same pattern of random-looking telemetry numbers from a year earlier during a practice simulator session. He calmly addressed Gerry Griffin: ‘Flight, try SCE to AUX…’ No one on the ground or in the air knew what he was talking about. Inside the Command Module Pete Conrad replied, ‘FCE to AUXILIARY? What the hell is that?’ SCE (signal conditioning equipment) to AUX (the auxiliary position) was an obscure switch on the main Command Module instrument panel that everyone had forgotten about. Everyone except John, who remembered the switch fixing the problem during the simulator run. On board the switch was located by Alan Bean, and lo and behold the telemetry data went to back to normal. John’s calm manner and holistic approach to understanding the vehicle’s complex systems saved the day, earning him the moniker as NASA’s original ‘steely-eyed missile man’, a sentiment that sums up what goes on in the mind in that elusive gap between a stimulus and a response. John was lucky. But luck is something that visits more frequently to those who come prepared.
I witnessed my own SCE to AUX moment at the Royal Albert Hall in London recently with Tim Peake and Tim Kopra. Moments before we were due to walk on stage to give a talk, there was a problem (as there always is) with the PowerPoint presentation. The usual scene of flustered people prodding a laptop and scratching their heads ensued. Tim Peake immediately snapped into astronaut mode, taking control of the situation, ‘working the problem’ and getting it calmly and efficiently sorted.
Whether it’s a PowerPoint presentation gone rogue, or a freshly fuelled Saturn 5 being hit by lightning, there are some people who just have the right stuff.
‘Zambians are inferior to no men in science and technology. My space plan will surely be carried out.’
Edward Nkoloso
‘We’re going to Mars! With a spacegirl, two cats and a missionary,’ proclaimed Edward Mukuka Nkoloso, the revolutionary, patriot, teacher, philosopher, scientist and dreamer. Like a moth drawn to the light, he wanted not only to escape the bonds of colonial rule, but also the shackles of earth’s gravity. Nkoloso wanted Zambia to touch the stars. So he did what any political freedom-fighter-cum-space-traveller would do – created his own national space agency.
The National Academy of Science, Space Research and Philosophy was founded in his home city of Lusaka in the grounds of an abandoned but elegant farmhouse in 1964, just a few years after Gagarin first left the cradle. It even had a motto designed to inspire and distil the essence of their values: ‘Where fate and human glory lead, we are always there.’ Eleven men were recruited to his astronaut corps, as well as a teenage girl called Matha Mwambwa. Like America’s first group of seven astronauts, Nkoloso’s selected group were put through a series of rigorous physical training exercises: a mixture of jumping jacks, callanetics and sit-ups, as well as g-force and weightlessness training, which involved playground swings and rolling down a hill in an oil drum – if you emerged unable to stand, you were disqualified. Astronomy and orbital mechanics were taught outside, where the recruits would learn about the stars and the moon. Nkoloso began imagining rocket and capsule designs, and in an act of early international cooperation he approached both the Russians and Americans to propose collaboration: a Zambian and an American should walk on the moon together, with the Zambian flag first to go up. That was a deal-breaker. He was convinced that Mars was inhabited ‘by primitive natives’, and proposed a launch to coincide with Zambian Independence Day. His request was turned down, but a rocket, the D-Kalu 1, named after President Kaunda, was made from some oil drums welded together. In a TV interview, we see Nkoloso dressed in a flamboyant cape and tin helmet, with his ragtag army of guerrilla astronauts training behind him, demonstrating to the world Zambia’s fitness and intention. Not just political independence, but planetary independence too. Not even gravity could clip their wings. The interviewer addresses us, unsure as to whether he is witnessing a hoax or madness.
Like all dreams, the Zambian space programme began to fade. The space girl became pregnant, the Afronauts drifted into employment elsewhere, and Nkoloso himself went back into mainstream politics, running for mayor and eventually studying law. The story to this day lives on through artists and film-makers, most vividly by the artist Cristina de Middel, who reimagined this story creating African-inspired spacesuits, juxtaposed with landscapes.
Behind the Nkoloso story lies neither a hoax nor madness. It is a moment that expresses the hopes of a country, the future of mankind, and indeed why we want to leave the planet at all.
‘Look at that tree. Because I can see the tree I can go to the tree. It’s the same with the moon.’
Edward Nkoloso
* Like many great quotations, he didn’t actually say this. See end notes.
** He didn’t actually say it quite like this.
* A thousand cranes is a Japanese symbol of good luck.
** Matthias Maurer was a finalist in the 2009 selection, but was only made an astronaut in 2015.
* Loud sudden noises and mental arithmetic are my two great fears in life.
* Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil ‘Gus’ Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald ‘Deke’ Slayton.
* Minus the sperm and steel eel, plus some gynaecological tests.
** Not everyone, obviously.
* The following degree fields are not considered qualifying: technology (engineering technology, aviation technology, medical technology, etc); psychology (except for clinical psychology, physiological psychology or experimental psychology); nursing; exercise physiology or similar fields; social sciences (geography, anthropology, archaeology, etc); and aviation, aviation management or similar fields.
** An advanced degree is desirable and may be substituted for experience as follows: master’s degree = one year of experience, doctoral degree = three years of experience. Teaching experience is considered to be qualifying experience.
