Mikhail Kotov — how the ESA decision reflected the trend of the times and the modern approach in the space sphereLast week, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the names of 17 new astronauts.
This time, the Europeans provided gender diversity almost on an equal footing: a little more than half were men, a little less were women. At the same time, for the first time in history, a person with disabilities, Paralympian John McFall, is included in the list of potential professional visitors to space from Earth. [...]
Once the world cosmonautics began with military pilots.
designer of rocket and space systems of the USSR
And the first Soviet cosmonaut squad was formed in 1960 on this principle. However, at that time they were required to have skills inherent even more in test pilots than fighters: maximum concentration on the process that has not yet been worked out with the willingness and ability to intervene in it, switch to manual control if necessary. And also then be able to tell in detail about what went wrong. The first space flights naturally carried the maximum risk: it was the first ten years of Soviet experience in this area that accounted for all four deaths of astronauts that occurred during flights to the stars.
The Americans followed a similar path, selecting future astronauts of the Mercury program (the first manned US space program of 1958-1963). According to the initial requirements, the candidate had to have three years of experience flying airplanes, balloons or serving on submarines as a commander, pilot, navigator, communications specialist, engineer or in another equivalent position. In addition to practical skills, an important point was the education of applicants — a degree not lower than a bachelor's degree.
However, US President Dwight Eisenhower intervened in this process. Apparently, in order not to complicate the selection procedure from a potentially huge number of applicants, he stated that it was military test pilots who met all the necessary requirements for space flights to a sufficient extent. I assume that Eisenhower could have been influenced by the then NASA administrator Hugh Dryden, who himself served during World War II in aviation.
Meanwhile, women were categorically not taken into the NASA cosmonaut squad in those years. If in the USSR, the head of the First Detachment, General Nikolai Kamanin, understood the importance of the flight of a female cosmonaut (for example, identifying the impact of the peculiarities of space flight on the female body, the impact on the image of the country), then in the USA for quite a long time they disavowed such experiments. Even when the female pilots independently arranged the selection according to the requirements that were imposed on male astronauts, and selected 13 people who passed the tests, NASA remained adamant . The appeal to the court did not help either.
So, the first Soviet female cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova went to the stars in 1963, and the first American astronaut Sally Ride got into orbit only 20 years later.
The first recruitment to the cosmonaut squad of the European Space Agency started much later than in the USSR and the USA. By that time, the tasks in the space sphere had already changed significantly, and therefore, when selecting applicants to the ESA, there was initially no such strong attachment to military pilots.
Technician and administrator
Today, the owners of civilian specialties — engineers, scientists, doctors, etc. - can work in space (I mean professional cosmonauts). There are quite a lot of women among astronauts in the USA, as well as in Europe. However, the Soviet-Russian history of cosmonautics so far has only five female cosmonauts.
Modern tasks require different skills and knowledge than it was at the start of space exploration (although strictly speaking, we are still on it), and therefore the training time for professionals has increased to an average of ten years (this is not only in Russia, but also in Europe and the USA). similar). The main work today is at orbital stations, which includes the preparation and staging of scientific experiments in very different industries and directions, Earth observation. At the same time, the educational function is very important: an astronaut should be able and willing to communicate, talk about his work, conduct "space lessons" and give lectures. For example, the TASS correspondent point has been working on the International Space Station for several expeditions. One cosmonaut from the crew takes on the mission of a correspondent and tells the audience of the news agency through photos and videos, reports, texts about what is happening at the station.
Among other things, to date, more and more time in orbit has been devoted to maintaining the ISS operability. And these are not the most "heroic" activities at first glance: it is required to maintain cleanliness, check and change a variety of electronic components, engage in life support systems, repair toilets and separate drinking water so that it does not contain air bubbles.
Considering all these points, I come to the conclusion that now it is not the ability to work quickly in extreme situations that is more important, but the ability not to bring such situations to such situations. Although, of course, this is only some transformation, not a complete rejection. The difference is exactly the same as between test pilots and civil aviation pilots. The former test the machines in critical conditions, test them for strength, determine from what moment the failure of the systems begins, and the latter fly steadily according to the rules and, if they are fully implemented, they may never get into a critical situation in their entire career.
A new reality
In connection with all this, the choice of future ESA astronauts, which was presented on November 23, does not cause experts any special questions. If specialists are selected who can work effectively at the station, work a lot, clearly and punctually according to a pre-scheduled cyclogram, then neither gender nor other differences between people are important. At the same time, from the point of view of popularizing the industry, an equal number of men and women, as well as the inclusion of a person with a disability in the list of 17 applicants for space, sounds very modern.
By the way, I note that five applicants are enrolled in the ESA cosmonaut squad: three men and two women. The remaining 12 people are officially "members of the astronaut reserve", in case of any problems for future astronauts or the expansion of the European Agency's space program. John McFall is just one of them, that is, he is not part of the cosmonaut squad, but remains in reserve. Its main task is to enable engineers and developers to understand for the future what changes will have to be made to the equipment in order to allow people with prosthetics to work on the orbital station. The world's first para-astronaut had his leg amputated after a serious accident at the age of 19. Its absence in space, by and large, is not as significant as on Earth. One can even assume that, even if not very soon, we will see people in orbit whose disability will turn out to be a kind of plus in gravity-free space.
At the same time John McFall is a member of the Paralympic team, a Paralympic medalist in the 100 m running (the Olympic record for such runners is 10.85 s, which is only slightly short of the usual title of master of sports).
In particular, for example, it is assumed that thanks to his participation in the coming years, the possibilities of people with disabilities to use spacesuits for spacewalking will be tested.
Accordingly, even if John McFall is not sent into space in the future, he will pave the way for future para-astronauts.
