8-3 Training For Space

Narrator: Two of ESA's new astronauts are preparing for their first missions into orbit. Luca Parmitano from Italy and Alexander Gerst from Germany will both be flying to the International Space Station and are currently training in various facilities owned by its partners.

From spacesuit technology at Russia's Star City to ATV operations at the European Astronaut Centre in Germany, their teaching schedule will give them as much spaceflight experience as is possible without leaving the Earth.

At NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, Alexander and Luca have been learning the intricacies of the US segment of the station.

Alexander Gerst: Just as the European Astronaut Centre has the Columbus module and the ATV, we have here the lab and basically the whole US part of the space station that we train in and in the very high-fidelity trainer. So it's a great thing to be here and I'm always looking forward to the days in my training schedule where I can be in this in this big hall here.

Narrator: Luca will be launched to the ISS in 2013 on board a Russian Soyuz capsule. Alexander will fly the following year. Both astronauts will be undergoing long-term missions, staying on board for around six months.

Luca Parmitano: One of the things that we have to think about is that the lack of gravity or the weightlessness has a very strong influence on our physiology. The human body was not made to to live under under those conditions, so we need to train our bodies constantly to react to the weightlessness so that when we come back, our bodies are not degraded and we can go back to our normal life as soon as we can.

Narrator: In the Neutral Buoyancy Lab at Johnson Space Center, astronauts train underwater to prepare for microgravity. By practicing maintenance procedures, they learn to adapt working practices to in-orbit conditions.

Alexander Gerst: When we do an EVA, meaning like we go in the spacesuit and outside to work outside the space station, then we have to know our tools. Just like every good handyman needs to know what they have in the garage to work with. If we use a tool that creates a big torque, like the PGT, the battery drill, we have to make sure that we're well embraced and we hold one hand on structure or we're in the foot restraint that keeps us in place. Yeah, otherwise we would just spin the other way and it would be really difficult to use the tool.

Narrator: Whilst much of the training in Houston is concerned with routine operations and day-to-day living, malfunction classes are also given to prepare astronauts for emergencies.

Luca Parmitano: Today we're training on daily ops, routine ops, but on any other day we could be performing experiments, we could be performing on-orbit maintenance, or we could be preparing to do an EVA, which is always the dream of any astronaut. And that could be an EVA that is planned on the ground and so for which we are very well prepared, or like it's happened before in orbit, something goes wrong and we need to go out and and fix it just by doing an EVA.

Narrator: Although long and arduous, for both of these astronauts mission training is part of a long-harboured dream, one which began with their selection in 2009 and will ultimately see their ambitions of spaceflight fulfilled.