Behind the Scenes: The Grueling Training Regimen of Astronauts
The devilish training astronauts have to face
Do you know what kind of devil training our great astronauts have gone through behind the scenes?
They must overcome various intensities of training that are unimaginable to ordinary people before they can fly into space. Here are several essential training subjects for astronauts.
Disorientation Training
Firstly, there is the rotating chair vestibular function training. Astronauts need to wear blindfolds and sit on a multi-axis swaying chair with their heads and limbs secured.
The chair rapidly rotates 360 degrees every 2 seconds while also moving in various directions — up, down, front, back, left, and right. Each training session lasts for 15 minutes, simulating weightlessness and disorientation in space to enhance astronauts’ resistance to dizziness.
Most ordinary people can’t endure more than 30 seconds without feeling dizzy.
The centrifuge is another form of intense vestibular stimulation training. It simulates the strong accelerations and decelerations during spacecraft takeoff and landing.
As the centrifuge swings, a small square box moves back and forth 15 meters. For those untrained, this experience could lead to nausea or vomiting because of the extreme motions.
Landing and Vibration Training
This type of training simulates the landing impact astronauts might experience when returning to Earth.
Astronauts free-fall in the impact tower training room for a few seconds, enduring physiological and psychological shocks that are unimaginable to most people.
They also wear anti-g suits to prevent blood from rushing to their heads during sudden accelerations, accompanied by intense vibrations, to enhance their shock resistance.
Then there’s the neutral buoyancy tank training, which simulates weightlessness in space for extravehicular activities. Astronauts wear 160-kilogram training suits while underwater, mastering posture control and coordination in a weightless state for up to 6 hours, leaving them physically drained after each session.
Lastly, there’s the excruciating centrifuge overload endurance training, where astronauts endure the immense overloads during spacecraft ascent and descent while remaining conscious.
They endure 8 times the force of gravity while answering various questions and enduring for 40 seconds. Their facial muscles severely deform because of powerful forces, tears flow uncontrollably, and they experience difficulty breathing and cerebral ischemia, which affects blood flow to the brain. (Despite having an emergency pause button, most astronauts never use it.
Besides these devilish training methods, astronauts face various other difficult challenges such as three days and nights without sleep, hypoxia endurance training in pressure chambers, and noise training.
But compared to the physical hardships of training, they endure profound loneliness in space. Each astronaut is a precious asset to their nation, deserving our utmost respect and admiration.
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