Astronauts Train And Wait

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32396, 8 September 1970, Page 8

Astronauts Train And Wait

The astronauts are fast becoming a forgotten breed as far as publicity is concerned. The deluge of magazine stories featuring these men and their families has suddenly dried up.

More than likely the astronauts regard the disappearance of photographers and storywriters as the only good thing resulting from the present cut-back in American space activities. Since April, 1959, when the original seven were chosen, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has inducted a total of 73 men to undergo astronaut training. Twothirds of them are still on flight status—to quote the official jargon. Of the other 24, eight are dead and the remaining 16 are, for the most part, top executives in business or Government service. It appears that training as an astronaut is an even better qualification for these posts than a diploma from the Harvard School of Business. Thirteen of the 16 former [astronauts still living parjticipated in one or more I spaceflights. Of the eight [dead only two, Grissom and White, ever flew in space. I They, with, Roger Chaffee, [died in the tragic Apollo 204 ifire on a pad at Cape Kennedy early in 1967. Four astronauts died in three separate crashes involving T-38 jet trainer aircraft and one died in a car smash. None has died in space, but it is premature yet to conclude that spaceflight is safer than flying a jet or driving a car. For lovers of statistics it may be mentioned that the Americans have amassed a total of

6265 man-hours in space—roughly three-quarters of a man-year. Space Veteran Of the original group of seven astronauts trained for Project Mercury only one is at flight status. He is Captain Alan B. Shepard, U.S.N., who will command Apollo 14, the next Apollo moonflight due for launching no earlier than January 31, next year. Captain Shepard has not flown in space since he became America’s first man in space on a 15-minute suborbital flight in May 1961. Ten years is quite a long time to wait between spaceflights.

Another member of the ( Mercury Seven, Don Slayton, has since 1963 been director jof a flight crew operations at I the Houston Manned Spaceflight Centre. He was rejected for a spaceflight when a minor heart ailment was discovered. His place was taken by Commander Scott Carpenter, who later left astronautics to become an aquanaut. The other three Mercury pilots who made orbital flights, Glenn, Schirra and Cooper, are now top businessmen. Their services have been keenly sought as directors, presidents and associates of various large corporations. Familiar Names The second group of astronauts, nine in all, was selected in September 1962. They included Neil Armstrong, who took one small step on to the Moon and one giant leap into the history books, and many other celebrated spacemen with familiar names such as Colonel Frank Borman, now a vice-president of Eastern Airlines, and rumoured to be favourite choice as the next head of N.A.S.A. Also in this group was the late Ed. White who became the first American to walk in space, and

Colonel Jim McDivitt who now is manager of the Apollo programme at Houston. The third group of 14 astronauts, chosen in 1963, included the remaining two members of the Apollo 11 crew, Aldrin and Collins. Fewer than half of the members of these two groups remain on flight status.

The next group, the fourth to be selected, consists entirely of scientists who have undergone extensive flight training. Two of the six in the group have resigned—one for personal reasons and one to return to full-time scientific work. None of the four have yet flown in space and are not listed to fly on [either of the next two Apollo flights. All four hold doctoral degrees—one in each of medicine, physics, geology and engineering. I The fifth group, announced in 1966, consisted of 19 men selected for their outstanding flying abilities. All but two of this group are current astronauts. One withdrew for medical reasons and the other was the victim of the car smash already mentioned. This group is providing the bulk of names listed as flight and back-up crews on at least the next two Apollo flights. In The Queue

| A further group of 11 scientist-astronauts was anInounced in August 1967. It includes Australian-born Dr [Philip Chapman, a physicist specialising in complex instrumentation. Two of the group became disenchanted and resigned for personal reasons in the early stages of their astronaut training. The others have now reached flight status and are waiting in the queue for their spaceflight. The last group to be announced, just over a year ago, consists of seven United States Air Force pilots who had undergone extensive training for the now defunct [Manned Orbiting Laboratory [ Programme which was intended to place a military space station in orbit. Three [of the seven are completing post-graduate degrees at various Universities, while the others are in readiness [for their first spaceflight, ■whenever it may come. Forty-nine trained astronauts are standing in line 'for roughly half as many [ couches in space capsules. On future Apollo flights and space station missions the scientist-astronauts may well outnumber the pilot-astro-nauts two to one because the Americans now want to maximise the scientific gains from every spaceflight. Most of the pilot-astronauts may have to Wait until the newly conceived space shuttle [vehicle is ready for flightI testing sometime in the midseventies.