美国国家公共电台 NPR A NASA Astronaut Stays In Orbit With SpaceX And Boeing

SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:

Now the latest installment 1 in our series Brave New Workers about people adapting to the changing economy.

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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I need a job, and I don't have a skill set other than flying.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Maybe I don't just need a different teaching job. Maybe I need a different career.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: In 1979, I started my trucking career. And I wanted to have the American dream.

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MCCAMMON: It's difficult to think of a more quintessential government project than space travel.

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JOHN F. KENNEDY: We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are.

MCCAMMON: But funding priorities have shifted. The U.S. shuttle program shut down in 2011. Since then, U.S. astronauts have relied on Russian spacecraft to reach the International Space Station. But NASA is now handing off some of the work it used to do to private companies like SpaceX and Boeing. And that means new jobs for those helping 2 with the transition.

SUNITA WILLIAMS: I'm a member of this - what we call the commercial crew cadre in our astronaut office.

MCCAMMON: That's astronaut Sunita Williams, who was the second female commander of the space station. Now, she's one of a small group of NASA astronauts helping SpaceX and other companies test and tweak their designs for technologies that will eventually carry astronauts into orbit and beyond.

WILLIAMS: Like a consultant 3, making sure their spacecraft is ready to go.

MCCAMMON: Williams is still excited, recounting the day of her first launch in 2006 after years of preparation.

WILLIAMS: Launch day was unbelievable.

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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: T-minus four minutes and counting.

WILLIAMS: You're like, oh, my gosh, we're really going to go.

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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Ten seconds.

WILLIAMS: And then the main engines light. And the spacecraft moves.

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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: We have liftoff of the space shuttle Discovery as we continue building the International Space Station.

WILLIAMS: And three of us on the mid 4 deck were rookies. And we were just hooting 5 and hollering because it is like the best roller coaster ride you've ever been on. All that momentum 6, all that vibration 7, all that noise is just, you know - you are part of it, and it's just launching off the planet. And then as soon as the main engines shut off, you're just floating.

And we were laughing hysterically 8 as your pen starts to float. You take your gloves off, the gloves start to float. It's pretty spectacular.

I've lived in this space station for two what we call long-duration increments 9. So my first time was 6 1/2 months. The second time was about 4 1/2 months. And every day is different. You know, one day, you might be cleaning the toilet. The next day, you might be doing some potentially Nobel Prize-winning science.

Because we're up there for long-duration missions, we really try to keep a normal day, sort of emulating 10 what we do on Earth. So generally, we get up at, you know, 6 o'clock or so, and then there's daily planning conferences with control centers all over the world. We get to work, and that might be getting ready for a spacewalk, might be doing a spacewalk, might be doing science experiments. Friday night is Friday night. And when I was up there, we tried to get together and maybe watch an American movie or a Russian movie.

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UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters) It's Groundhog Day.

WILLIAMS: Bill Murray was a favorite, so "Groundhog Day" was sort of a funny movie to watch when you're up there because you sort of feel like you're in a Groundhog Day.

MCCAMMON: While she was up there, Sunita Williams set a record for number of spacewalks and longest space walk by a female astronaut. In 2015, NASA chose her for its commercial crew program, which advises the private companies contracted by NASA. She says even though she's working with familiar components 11 and protocols 12, her new job feels like a new frontier.

WILLIAMS: This is really different from my old job. You know, I became an astronaut, learned everything I could about the shuttle and went through classes to understand all the systems, went through simulators. It was all laid out already. The plan was there. And you had to get this, this, this and this done before you can go fly in space, right? These systems - they're brand new. They don't really have training systems established for them yet. We're sort of creating that right now with the folks at the companies. We're talking about, like, what things are important? How much does the astronaut really need to know? And you know, just also the classic things like getting in the space suit. Can you do it fast, you know, in case you have an emergency? Can you get in your seat? Can I reach all the controls. We're establishing all that right now.

It's just the right time for private companies to do space. NASA's been going to International Space Station for a number of years. The shuttle was pretty expensive, and it was old, frankly 13 - you know, 1970s technology. Looked like an old 737, you know, with a cockpit full of switches.

Commercial space is definitely going to benefit all of us in some form or fashion, right? You know, it's providing transportation for NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. So that's in the immediate 14 future. But when you step back and look at what's going on, this is research and development in rocketry of how to make systems safer for space travel with new ideas and new manufacturing techniques, which will make spacecraft safer and smarter and better.

We want to keep reaching. We want to keep learning. We want to keep finding the next thing. And this type of exploration with a common goal, a common good of looking at something farther and bigger than ourselves, totally opens the door for collaboration 15 and cooperation for people from all over the world.

MCCAMMON: That's astronaut Sunita Williams. She's one of the voices from our series Brave New Workers about adapting to a changing economy.