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Geologic training for America’s astronauts
GSA TODAY | AUGUST 2016 Dean Eppler*, Cynthia Evans, Code XA, NASA-JSC, 2101 NASA
Parkway, Houston, Texas 77058, USA; Barbara Tewksbury, Dept.
of Geosciences, Hamilton College, Clinton, New York 13323, USA;
Mark Helper, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University
of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA; Jacob Bleacher,
Code 698, NASA-GSFC, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA; Michael
Fossum, Duane Ross, and Andrew Feustel, Code CB, NASA-JSC,
2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, Texas 77058, USA.
ABSTRACT
NASA astronauts are smart, highly motivated, intensely
curious, and intellectually fearless. As pilots, scientists, and engi-
neers, they have outstanding observational and reasoning skills.
Very few, however, have any prior background in geology. The
purpose of this article is to inform the geologic community about
what we are doing to provide useful geologic training for current
and future NASA astronauts who will spend many months
observing Earth from orbit on the International Space Station and
who will be involved in such activities as suit and tool testing, field
operations, mission planning, and future off-planet exploration.
THE CONTEXT
NASA currently selects a new astronaut candidate class every
four years, and each astronaut class undergoes 18 months of
training before graduating to join the Astronaut Corps. The
training is intense and focuses primarily on the International
Space Station (ISS)—basic spaceflight operations, ISS systems,
spacewalks, robotic arm operations, Russian language, human
life sciences, and flight certification in T-38 jets. Geologic
training is currently limited to four weeks. In that short amount
of time, astronaut candidates must have an effective initial
training experience in Earth observations, as well as learn about
past, present, and future planetary missions to prepare them for
public outreach obligations and future lunar and planetary
exploration destinations.
In 2008, the authors introduced a new geologic training
program built on geologic training that began with the Apollo
missions. Each crewmember of Apollo 15, 16, and 17 received over
550 hours of geologic training in mission-relevant field locations
(Amsbury, 1989; Evans et al., 2011; Lofgren et al., 2011; Phinney,
2015), and the success of a mentored approach to field training
has shaped our current curriculum. After Apollo, classroom
training focused on Earth observations from orbit (Amsbury,
1989; Evans et al., 2011). Field training remained an important,
though much more limited, part of astronaut training (Bauer et
GSA Today, v. 26, no. 8, doi: 10.1130/GSATG295GW.1.
*dean.b.eppler@nasa.gov; e-mail for correspondence after 30 Apr. 2016: eppler@lpi.usra.edu.
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al., 2000; Muehlberger, 2004; Dickerson, 2004), and Shuttle-era
field training provided important background and context for our
curriculum. The integrated approach to astronaut geologic
training currently involves two weeks of classroom training
followed by five days in the field. In addition, astronauts also
receive a week of classroom training focused on NASA planetary
missions, including the successes of Apollo and the motivation for
human exploration of the Moon, Mars, and asteroids.
DESIGNING EFFECTIVE GEOLOGIC TRAINING
NASA’s current mission is ISS-focused, and Earth is the first
planet that current astronauts will see from a spacecraft. Geologic
training must prepare astronauts to recognize geologic features
and events, and to interpret, document, and report what they see
from orbit to geologists on the ground. They also need to under-
stand how remotely sensed data augment visual observations and
relate to features that can be observed in the field.
In order to meet a NASA requirement to make the training
ISS-focused, we have taken an “orbit to outcrop” approach.
Astronauts gain first-hand experience both in interpreting what
can be seen from orbit and in making field observations and
interpretations that provide critical constraints on what can be
interpreted from orbital images alone. ISS crewmembers have
responded enthusiastically to requests to photograph specific
targets for use in training their fellow astronauts. Consequently,
we can base our training around recently acquired images from
the ISS of rock units, structures, and surface features that astro-
nauts will interpret in the field.
Our biggest challenge was how to provide effective training for
geological novices in a period of time that is presently constrained
by astronaut schedules to two weeks in the classroom followed by
one week in the field. Our approach is to focus the entire training
on a narrowly defined field problem, use the classroom training to
prepare astronauts effectively for tackling that field problem, and
challenge them with a field experience that gives them personal
practice in making informed observations, collecting data, and
interpreting geologic processes and histories at a field site with
geologic features that are important in both a terrestrial and plan-
etary context.
The field site around which we have based the training is
located in the northern Rio Grande Rift in New Mexico, USA.
We chose the site in part for the variety of features that can be
interpreted both in the field and in orbital imagery and in part
for analogs of basaltic volcanism and faulting on other planets.
During the pre-field classroom sessions, astronauts use a variety
of remotely sensed data, including ISS photos, to construct a