NASA Retools Training Regimen

Training & Development, Mar 2009 by Ketter, Paula

Focus shifts to crew survival.

A recently released NASA report finds that the astronauts on the Columbia Space Shuttle were inadequately trained in crew survival. The 400-page report included more than 30 recommendations to improve the spacecraft's design and crew safety.

On that fateful February day in 2003, as the Columbia crew prepared to reenter the Earth's atmosphere, seven astronauts were trying to regain control of the spacecraft, focusing more on solving the vehicle control issues than their own survival.

"Crew members become conditioned to focus on problem resolution rather than crew survival," the report says. "The training does not adequately prepare the crew to recognize impending survival situations."

When the first alarms sounded on the shuttle, the astronauts tried to right the spacecraft as it spun out of control. They were following NASA procedures, the report says, by focusing on preparing the shuttle, and not themselves, for a return to Earth. Some of the crew members were not wearing protective gloves and still had their helmet visors open. Some were not fully strapped in, and one was barely seated.

In seconds, me shuttle lost cabin pressure, and the astronauts blacked out. They either died from the loss of pressure or from the violent movements sustained from being thrown around the spacecraft. Even if the crew had time to get their gear on and their suits pressurized, they still would not have survived the accident. The suits do not pressurize automatically, and the parachutes do not engage automatically. Those are two things that NASA intends to fix for future missions, according to the report.

NASA's astronaut training program familiarizes the crew with the systems and flight skills necessary to run an effective mission. The blended learning approach starts with workbooks and briefings and progresses to lessons with trainers and simulators.

"While the training incorporates scenarios that involve multiple systems failures, in general it is considered nonproductive to train scenarios from which there is no recovery, and so those cases are not simulated," the report states. "Unrecoverable conditions are not intentionally presented to the crew during training."

The crew training recommendations in the report include incorporating objectives that emphasize the transition from recoverable systems problems to impending survival situations. An additional recommendation was to assemble a team of crew escape instructors, flight directors, and astronauts to assess procedures of ascent, de-orbit, and entry contingencies, as well as determine vehicle dynamics and crew survival during vehicle loss of control so that it can be integrated into future training.

According to a NASA fact sheet, loss of control training has been modified to include emphasis on the transition between problem solving and survival, and the concept that the crew should lock inertial reels, close visors, and pull the personal oxygen system at first recognition of a serious problem.

Paula Keffer is editor of T D; pketter@astd.org.