Following Stiva's mission: NASA requires a professional astronaut on every private flight - voila! Technology

2022-08-07T08:37:08.946Z

Loads, tensions and not easy adaptation to the conditions of the International Space Station in the private space mission "Axiom-1" in which the Israeli Stiva also participated, led NASA to draw lessons and change procedures for flights

Following Stiva's mission: NASA requires a professional astronaut on every private flight

Voila system!

technology

07/08/2022

Sunday, August 7, 2022, 11:20 am Updated: 11:24 am

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Eitan Stiva after landing on Earth (photo: courtesy of SpaceX)

NASA will soon require a retired astronaut to command every private space flight to the International Space Station. The policy, which is still under discussion, according to the US space agency, will increase passenger safety and reduce the burden on space station operations. According to the announcement, "the former astronauts will provide hands-on training to the private space pilots In preparation for the flight and during the mission."

According to the announcement, the changes are learning lessons from the private space mission "Axiom-1", in which the Israeli Eitan Stiva also participated, and in which each passenger paid 55 million dollars to fly on the first civilian space mission to the space station.

The crowded and demanding mission The two-week period, during which the private space pilots also worked on their own experiments, created stress and tension for the space tourists as well - as well as for the professional astronauts who normally man the International Space Station - according to interviews with members of the mission, who testified that the schedule was murderous and tough.

Eitan Stiva and the mission team (Photo: Courtesy Of SpaceX)

The Axiom-1 mission actually had a former astronaut as mission commander, Michael Lopez-Alegria, who serves as the lead astronaut for the Axiom space company, which launched the mission to the station.

The company considered carrying out the following missions without a professional astronaut at all, thus freeing up another seat for sale in the spacecraft.

NASA's new policy blocks that possibility.

Other changes that will affect future space tourists are new medical requirements, changes to payload recovery, and more time to acclimate to zero-gravity conditions.

Astronauts with training and backgrounds don't exactly grow on trees: There are currently only 200 astronauts alive. former of NASA, and it is not clear how many of them want to fly into space again or are physically able to meet the strict medical requirements.

In NASA itself, by the way, there is also a shortage: currently the active astronaut status of the space agency is only 44 astronauts, the lowest number of space pilots since the 1970s.