I Trained Like a NASA Astronaut

we were Wanderers from the beginning bounded only by the earth and the sky the frontier was everywhere [Music] [Applause] - undiscovered lands and New Worlds [Music] what's up guys I am here in Houston Texas at NASA because I am gonna be training like an astronaut yeah I am terrified about her space the thought of being strapped into a rocket and being launched into a dark abyss absolute no hell no space for me is the epitome of all my greatest fears the unknown being alone dying like George Clooney and gravity which honestly doesn't make sense to me I don't know why Sandra Bullock because we've just pulled on the line and brought him back dirt but it was a great movie regardless that exact scene is my literal nightmare I have that nightmare at least once a month I have nothing but utmost respect for astronauts because of the years of physical and mental training danger so I'm hoping that if I can get a taste of this training maybe it'll help me overcome some of my fears here on earth so this week we're gonna see if I have the right stuff to be an astronaut challenge accepted my name is Megan Sumner I'm a public affairs specialist here at Johnson Space Center it is very competitive to become an astronaut so 2017 which is our latest astronaut selection we had over 18,000 people apply and 12 people were selected so it's pretty hard going to space is a pretty unique and amazing experience you get to view the Earth from the vantage point of space which not many people get to view but during long-duration missions when they're living in space for six months they work out two hours a day and don't get to shower for six months they have to take pretty much sponge baths when they go out on spacewalks for six hours that is an extremely challenging activity they don't get to eat they don't go to the bathroom I don't think Michelle understands how difficult some of the training that she'll get into is but before we went to Houston we actually started our training here in California at the Chino Airport Steve it's so nice to meet you I'm really excited and also slightly terrified to fly this plane today verified why it's safer than driving on the road is it oh yeah okay all the astronauts have to be trained in the t-38 jet that is really so that they are put in a real-life situation if something goes wrong then there are real consequences we're gonna fly 39 but Rose would you say this is the previous experience I could have without the T Tauri yes probably we can I have about 6 G's astronauts have to train themselves to be able to withstand the forces that they're under in a rocket going to spit flying a jet and going upside down and experiencing lots of G's is the best way to do that I was kind of personally under the impression we were gonna go in the sky and maybe like just do a loop-de-loop when Steve started going through our plan for the flight he just kept going the first maneuver gonna be a roar after that we're gonna do a barrel roll if everything go all right [Music] when I think of going to space one of the most terrifying parts of it for me is being launched experiencing a bit of what this is like well maybe quell some of those fears for me I have never experienced what multiple g's feel like so that sensation will be different in new and I'm a little bit nervous about it apparently a lot of people black out Steve went over in our briefing how to eject myself from the plane really hope I don't have to use that piece of new knowledge so it's really fun as well as very scary about a jet like this is that when you're in a commercial plane you only have one small window and it seems like the earth is kind of moving slowly underneath you and this you can see everything around you it felt just like a movie it was so beautiful up there it felt pretty good on the take-off and within 20 seconds we were taking hard turn I thought there would be a little bit more of a warm-up but we don't write it there was this moment when we were free-falling where I actually felt very calm is like time stopped [Music] [Music] [Music] that was completely insane you are a badass I'm really good with like theme parks and rollercoasters yeah that was unlike anything I've ever experienced so now that we have literally dove headfirst into this training I'm excited to continue at NASA in Houston today we're in the neutral buoyancy lab this is where we do spacewalk training with our astronauts we have the mock-ups of almost the entire space station underwater this is the most similar you can get to actually doing a spacewalk it's so crazy that they like recreated what's up there down here we have a Japanese astronaut kimiya yui and a NASA astronaut stay in love that have suited up now they're in their spacesuits they're getting ready to go in the water and start their dive for the day the suit doesn't look very comfortable yeah heavy is the suit the suit weighs about 250 pounds so it is extremely heavy of course in space and even in the pool here they're weightless and so they don't feel that weight the suit has to be multiple layers to protect them from micro meteorites and radiation from temperature changes so it's really their mini space shuttles so this moment is this simulating the moment where the door open pretty much they get into the airlock when they're in space I'm not the pressurized module that is where they would do what they did here which is getting the spacesuit on and then once they open the door that will be like getting into the tool what are they training today the first one of the day they're going to be doing some operations to see if they can get like a cable pass through one part of the truss segment to the other fighters the second part of it they're going to be using the articulating arm to do replacements of the part in this part of that segment over here and then the third part of the day they're gonna be building a new piece of equipment that's gonna be on the space station as well they're out there for six hours to think go to the bathroom they see and go to the bathroom they have maximum absorption garments which is pretty much a diaper this is a peak fear and discomfort at the same time yeah I'm Karen Nyberg I'm an astronaut at NASA of an astronaut for almost 19 years now I flew in space two times so the first time was in 2008 on space shuttle Discovery and then in 2013 I flew on a Russian Soyuz rocket and lived on space station for five and a half months I watched your YouTube videos you're basically an astronaut youtuber when you're doing your hair tutorial I was like I want to follow along at home but I have gravity so I can I love the video of you quilting in space are you familiar with Ariana Grande vaguely have you heard her song NASA that's ugh I don't know there was this great interaction where the NASA Twitter account retweeted her wouldn't the song came out we were just gonna get a yeah I'd love to know a bit more about why you wanted to be an astronaut I decided when I was really little that I wanted to be an astronaut in 1978 they selected their first female astronauts I was nine and it impacted me the first two years as an astronaut candidate is a lot of training we put a lot of stress on the emergency training because if there was an emergency you don't have time to really think about it we actually do it here in this space station mock-up the instructors will have different scenarios that they have us run through so fake fire depressurisation of the space station or those are the three main ones that we have to take immediate action I think you would be silly to say you're not scared at all you're strapping yourself on a rocket and going into space but I think the training we have in the background we have it's very tempered you don't feel that fear when you're sitting on the launch pad because you have a job to do and you're there to do it my name is Kimberly Chadwick and I'm a countermeasure system instructor which means we train the crew on how to stay healthy when they're into space one of the things people don't realize is when you're in zero-g your bones and your muscles aren't having to work as hard because you're not fighting gravity and you can lose up to 2% of bone and muscle mass per month which is like having osteoporosis they have three pieces of exercise equipment to keep them healthy in space they have a bicycle they have a treadmill and they have a weightlifting machine what's different about the bike in space is that there it's not really a handlebar which I hold on to and there's not a seat you have shoes that clip into the pedal and you just hover above it and your cycle will try the treadmill next okay more challenging to load them down since they would float off of it as we put the harness on them and we use these bungees here oh so you're gonna have to sell a lot of really exactly there you go so is it gonna change in space we believe both diminish we're going so it defaults to three miles per hour this is only three miles an hour every time you hit page up it's gonna go up 110 do you like ariana grande what did you think about her son oh my god the next one is the hardest one right yeah we're gonna use the full-size bench but I'm going to show you the zero-g bench first they pull it and so you'll see this is not gonna support the whole body they just need it holding their torso there's a belt that holds them to keep you from floating off of it what will make this a little awkward at first is because you have gravity it's wanting to fall that way or this way so you want to try to control it and make it go straight up and straight down oh did that straight up though that's good that's good and zero-g you wouldn't be fighting the gravity part so it'd be a little easier it looks so bizarre does so how does this work if there's a weight in space that is an excellent question what is going on we've got two vacuums up here at the top that are you're working against vacuum how long do astronauts exercise for every day they're scheduled two and a half hours a day on exercise for six days a week and then they use exercise not just to physically keep strong but also as a mental break I like to compare their day as reading an owner's manual for eight hours a day this is Peggy Whitson she's our record breaker for flying up there for the longest period of time how long was Peggy and space she was one of our 1-year astronauts I can't imagine spending a year on the International Space Station for my first flight I did not have a family for my second flight I did so there's that aspect in it I'm married to an astronaut and so I've seen it from both sides it is definitely easier from the side of the person who was flying into space because you are so focused on the job as the family it's harder when I went for my lingerie shoe flight my son was three part of making it easier was making sure that he was comfortable with me going to do that we tried to never make it a negative thing that Mommy was going to be leaving we would show him the space station flying to the sky mommy's gonna go live there the days went really really fast it does get hard but I think we as astronauts learn to compartmentalize quite a bit you have to space can be really stressful and we want food to be a positive experience for the astronauts low Earth orbit I'm Ryan dowdy I'm the ISS food system manager and I'm on the team here at Johnson Space Center that helps get all the food to the International Space Station right now the ISS food system has about ten different standard menu containers that the crew is able to eat from at any given time as well as one crew specific menu specifically made for you and you get one container for coffee or tea today I picked out some of our perennial favorites that the crew have so that you can try yes the first thing that I want to pull out is a shrimp cocktail those are freeze dried shrimp so feel how lightweight that is it is food is about 90 percent water and after we freeze dry that here in the food lab it goes down to about 10% moisture this makes it shelf stable so that bacteria can't grow and spoil the food after we freeze dry it it gets about a three-year shelf life what am i holding all is it let's see this was packaged at the end of 2017 so we're gonna rehydrate it and you can let us know how fresh it tastes I'm not gonna get sick you're not gonna get sick all right why can't we just feed someone nutrition bars and the answer is have you ever tried to eat Clif bars for six months at a time for crew it's been found that variety is incredibly important keep them interested in the food because if it doesn't taste good the astronauts are gonna stop eating they're gonna lose weight and we can actually experience mission failure so um when ariana grande at least her song NASA I'm a big ariana grande fan to me it said this is our generation really incredible things and we're going into space and on top of that we're starting the Commercial Crew program and launching crew from the United States for the first time since 2011 which is pretty awesome the deepest interpretation of that song so this is our shrimp cocktail and this was cooked two years ago yes Bon Appetit [Music] I'm really impressed I was honestly expecting to eat Clif bars it's so important to have a good food in space one of our other favorites is macaroni and cheese you guys made it homemade and then freeze dried it yes all of this is from scratch how does some way grandmotherly well right all of it is from scratch we put a lot of love into all the food that goes up to the International Space Station oh my god it tastes like homemade mac and cheese from like a really awesome five-star diner finally we're gonna finish with one of the favorite crewmember desserts this is cherry blueberry cobbler Wow what do you think girl you know what I'm thinking you're just over there like what do you think and you know it's great yeah oh my god what's going on so inside the spacesuit there's a four psi Delta between inside the suit and the vacuum of space as opposed to putting you in a full suit and putting you in a vacuum chamber this is an alternative way to do that so this is just simulating like feeling the pressure oh my god feeling it oh yeah working in a pressurized glove well I'm the deputy system manager for the current suit so my job is to make sure that the astronauts have the right size of suits and then if anything breaks or needs adjustment figuring out how to fix that or help the astronauts to make those adjustments so this is one of the tethers that they have on Space Station one half will go to your person on your spacesuit and the other half at the space station you have to push the button in on both sides and then kind of swinging the bottom in there you go yeah holy cow eight hours of this okay the true test is to not in a bolt something that everybody's seen and has around their house fine motor skills were difficult and really fun to do in the gloves so people do this in space there are very intricate tasks that the astronauts have to do this is like being in a mascot uniform while asked to like draw a perfect circle this is insane okay I have to get this I'm sorry if the hardest thing I do during astronauts training is put a knot on a bolt that is saying something about the attention to detail astronauts have we're being controlled by the Mission Control centers around the world Houston Moscow and I never had a moment where I didn't trust what they told me if our laptops showed in warning that something was wrong and they called up and said no action I completely trust that they have everything under control and I don't need to do anything there was never a trust issue with that and crewmates as well we're doing this as a team it's not an individual effort and so you have to be able to trust your teammates it literally looks like it does in the movies when I told people I was doing this video and getting it to come to NASA everyone's like oh were you doing that thing where you spin around the multi-axis trainer yeah and we learned that that's not even a part of astronaut training no why is that in movie the first astronauts and Mercury Gemini and they did that training but we don't do that now a lot of films are more science fiction than fact there's a lot of misconceptions I think there's too many to name them all just understanding that we're just people who happen to be going to space I don't know how you changed that my name is Paul Valle I'm the project manager here at the active response grab the off load system Argos is a robot that simulates reduced gravity and so that means we can make you feel like you're weightless we can make you feel like you're in lunar gravity on Mars so we'll hook you up into our harness right here get the system going for you and right off the bat you're gonna be placed into weightlessness and you'll be training like an astronaut doing a TV a on the space station doing like a spacewalk out there so this is the harness you're gonna be in and then you're gonna get picked up to this gimbal up here and this is what's gonna connect you to Argos I'm so excited I never got to go to Space Camp as a kid yeah this is your moment then better than Space Camp kids there don't get to do this system we do a lot of astronaut training for like specific tasks for example repairing something where when they push off they're floating away we also do a lot of motion tracking and have them walking or gravity for example do movies ever use this system for the stunts or motion capture not stunts or motion capture but we have had some experiences of what spaceflight is like first man was in here had all the cast that year to do various training all right Tyler I'm gonna have you in able vertical is it scary and like should I be scared no I don't think so if you just push off and float away though you're gonna keep floating forever so I'm not gonna George Clooney not gonna George Clooney today all right Tyler's drive up in fine and I can go up from course and you can hold there so you're gonna notice you have some ability to move and if you grab that table you can kind of pull your head down a little bit and send your feet up push it off and go back to neutral all right are you ready to get goin I I guess so what I'm gonna do first is I'll bring you over to this mock-up right here and then all these yellow handrails we have all around those when you're supposed to grab and touch as an astronaut oh my god this feels so weird it feels like it exactly like it looks in the movie so you want to keep your body moving nice and slow so we have speed limits set that if you go too fast we're gonna lock the brakes on you we train our astronauts not to move fast and you'll notice as you get going you have to use the same amount of energy to stop yourself if you have a spacesuit on and you weigh now you know 600 pounds worth of mass when you're trying to move outside the International Space Station when you try to stop your body you have to control all of that mass being in this I kind of forgot for a moment that this side is like the side of it and that's the floor yeah in space there's no true floor or ceiling right there's something that just feels like really graceful and beautiful about this even though I probably don't you're you're looking pretty good actually yeah you're looking more graceful and some other people have been am i more graceful than Ryan Gosling was he was pretty good we good yeah I'm pretty good yeah he was a natural gravity I can see show us in for Neil Armstrong were you here with me was here [Music] the Argo system was honestly a once-in-a-lifetime experience I can't believe I got to do that there's something really magical about feeling weightless and having this space around you be fully inhabitable and just kind of felt like a mental weightlessness as well which was really cool [Music] so now I'm going to experience lunar gravity which is very minimal gravity being able to jump really high very easily but still come back down to the ground so you are now in lunar gravity so right now you weigh one [Music] Oh literally feels like you're spider-man it's another fun thing the signs new is push-ups yeah can always do that one hand dad being an astronaut is so easy just kidding me announcer mine is really hard whoa am I am I going to outer space level sorry you hit her upper safety stop okay you jumped too hard I superhero too hard this experience getting a very small taste of what it's like to train to go to outer space really taught me a lot about myself and I think the misconceptions I have about the things I fear most before this experience I thought that space was this frontier that was scary and unknown what I realized through this experience and throw a lot of my challenge videos is that the perceptions I have about these things are often roms hearing Karen's a that she is a human just like me really put things into perspective often times we look at our heroes and put them on this pedestal like they're separate and different from us and at the end of the day we're all just human and if someone else can overcome their greatest fears so can i and so can anybody if you guys enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up comment below what crazy challenge I should take on on challenge accepted next and as always subscribe so you can keep on going on more adventures together also huge shout out to these amazing participants in our hashtag I am ultra Instagram challenge if you want a chance at being next week shout out be sure to make a post on instagram and tag me in it using the hashtag i am ultra to tell me a way in which you have overcome an obstacle in your life and totally kicked ass thank you so much to NASA for allowing me to hang out with you this past week it was such an incredible experience and best of luck to the next round of astronauts elect

Channel: Michelle Khare

Views: 4,485,531

Rating: 4.9491801 out of 5

Keywords: michelle khare, buzzfeed michelle, trending, google trends, nasa, I Trained Like a NASA Astronaut, astronaut training, zero gravity, astronaut, karen nyberg, train, challenge accepted, space food, space training, go to the moon, moon, outer space, travel, space travel, iss, international space station, mars, go to mars, gravity, first man, apollo, we are going, shuttle, planets, earth, rockets, hubble, telescope, galaxy, universe, gemini, flight, houston, ariana grande, sweetener, thank u next

Id: qmQeskMASA0

Length: 25min 20sec (1520 seconds)

Published: Sun May 19 2019