Those who want to become an astronaut goes through 2 years of basic training where they study:
• Basic science (which includes maths, astronomy, physics, geology, meteorology, oceanography),
• Technology (in the field of navigation, orbital mechanics, materials processing)
• Space shuttle system.
They are also taught:
• Land and sea survival techniques
• Scuba diving and ways to overcome high (hyberbaric) and low (hypobaric) atmospheric pressure conditions
• Swimming test
• Micro gravity of space flight
If and when they pass these training, that’s when they become qualified to be selected for a flight. When they do get selected, they go through ten months of training for that specific flight.
Even if they complete the ten months of training, everything will still depend on their health and other conditions on flight date.
1. Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin is one of those guys that were just blessed to become hardcore from the minute he was born. He is insanely handsome, he was Russian, and he could command a spacecraft better than Tony Hawk could command his skateboard.
On April 12, 1961, he cemented his awesomeness by becoming the first man to orbit the earth.
2. Alan Shepard
Alan Shepard is the American counterpart of Yuri Gagarin. Well, almost. Let’s see:
• He took off on May 5, 1961. Gagarin took off in April of that same year
• His Mercury capsule was like half of Gagarin’s Vostok
• Shepard’s was on space for 15-minutes, Gagarin floated for 108 minutes
But hey, we take our victories where we can get them, right?
3. Gus Grissom
In July 21, 1961 almost died. The explosive bolts on his hatch blew too quickly after the landing, flooding the capsule and causing it to plunge to the bottom of the Atlantic. Luckily, Grissom had the magical ability of not dying. He maked out of his capsule in time and defied his space suit ability to hold on to water.
He was rescued on time. He eventually flew successfully, landed successfully, but death still had him several years after that during a launchpad training exercise at Cape Kennedy.
4. Andrian Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich
So Russia wasn’t happy to be the first to send man into orbit. They decided they’d go for two men in orbit.
On Aug. 12, 1962, they sent to spacecraft into orbit and meet. You know how hard it is for two cars to meet in Times Square, right? Gravity and all. Well, Russia successfully did it with two spacecrafts cruising at 17,500 m.p.h. in a cosmic wilderness the size of the universe.
Cosmonauts Andrian Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich passed within three miles of each other’s spacecraft.
5. Alexei Leonov
Alexei Leonov became the first man (and he is Russian) to walk on space. It happened March 18, 1965.
US was starting to walk around with a big L sign on their foreheads especially when Russia found Gagarin’s heir apparent in looks and flying skills.
The darn guy was handsome, brave and street smart as proven by his ability to improvise when he realized the geeks back in Russia made an error in computing the inflation his suit needed to successfully re-enter his spacecraft after 12 minutes of walking on space.
Like Gagarin, he was considered a national treasure from then on and was never again allowed to fly again lest something happens to him. They almost put him in a glass cage or something.