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In Episode 131, Kathy Bolt, chief training officer and capcom, gives us a peek inside the world of training as an astronaut, how it has evolved, and how we are training our astronauts for future missions. This episode was recorded on January 6th, 2020.
Transcript
Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 131, “Train Like an Astronaut.” I’m Gary Jordan. I’ll be our host today. On this podcast we bring in the experts — scientists, engineers, astronauts — all let you know what’s going on in the world of human spaceflight. We are lucky enough to bring in a number of astronauts onto this podcast. For the most part when we’ve talked to them they’ve been training for quite some time in preparation for a long duration stay on the International Space Station and they’re just about to leave the country before their launch, and we investigate their unique stories of what it took to become an astronaut. Well, today we’re sitting down with someone who has trained hundreds of astronauts to zero in on all the aspects of astronaut training and everything they have to endure from their first day to the moments before launching to space. So, going into the details of the intense training needed to be an astronaut today is Kathy Bolt, the Chief Training Officer and a capcom [Capsule Communicator] here at NASA. So here we go, “Training Like an Astronaut,” with Ms. Kathy Bolt. Enjoy.
[ Music ]
Host: Kathy Bolt, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
Kathy Bolt: Thanks for inviting me.
Host: So, you are the, let’s see, Chief Training Officer and you’re a capcom. Such a cool job title, how did you get that?
Kathy Bolt: Well, I was lucky, I’ll tell you that. It has been an experience. You know, I started working here some almost, what, 30 years ago now.
Host: Wow.
Kathy Bolt: It was 1991, and I started training crews in 1997 when we first started training the space station crews.
Host: I see.
Kathy Bolt: And then over the course of the last couple of decades I’ve just kind of grown into the position of a Chief Training Officer, and then because we work so closely with the crew then I was selected to be a capcom about 12 years ago, so I get to support them when they’re on orbit even after spending time training them.
Host: So, what does it take then to — I guess there’s this proximity to the crew that really helps you to hone those skills and understand their needs, what is it about being so close to the crew that helps you communicate effectively to them?
Kathy Bolt: Well, I think it’s just going through their training and seeing them in training for the two and a half years we have them in ground training before they ever fly. So as a Chief Training Officer it’s my job to organize that flow of their training from beginning to end and even continue with onboard training once they’re in-flight. So, I have this wide variety of experiences of just watching them in training, observing them and also role playing the ground team in many of their training sessions. So, they get used to hearing my voice as a capcom through training and then I can do it real-time once they get onboard as well.
Host: And that’s what a capcom does, right?
Kathy Bolt: Yes.
Host: A capcom sits in Mission Control and you are the voice talking to the crew. Everyone is telling you all these different pieces of information and you’re the one that has to be that filter to the crew.
Kathy Bolt: Right.
Host: And have that, and because you’re so close to them, you have that relationship, they understand your voice then, and you know how to talk to them in a way that makes sense to them for what I guess other flight controllers are asking?
Kathy Bolt: Yes, yeah, that’s the goal anyway, I will say that is the goal, and it really does help to have that personal connection with the crews, which is why I think the training folks that we have as capcoms are usually really good.
Host: Yeah, well, tell me about some of your — you talked earlier in your career, you got here in ’91, you said you started crew training in ’97, what skills did you build to eventually make your way to crew training?
Kathy Bolt: Well, to be honest, I was a software programmer —
Host: Oh.
Kathy Bolt: — those first five or six years and that’s just, that’s how I got my foot in the door. Whenever I was a kid I wanted to grow-up and work for NASA, I wanted to be an astronaut at that time. Ever since I’ve started training them I’ve decided training is more my style than actually being the astronaut, but my goal was get out of college and go work for NASA. So, I started out as a Software Developer, and then my company was actually swallowed up into United Space Alliance which was the company that essentially took over all of the training and operations for the space shuttle back in 1996. And when that company got incorporated into United Space Alliance then that opened up a door for me to do other things and that’s when I found out about Station Training because they were just starting to hire people to start building a space station training program. They had trainers for shuttle crews and training about how to fly the shuttle vehicle, but they were just hiring people to start training for the International Space Station and figuring out what a training flow was even going to look like for the International Space Station at that time. So that’s when I joined.
Host: So, you mentioned joining because you already had interest in NASA, when did that spark?
Kathy Bolt: With the very first space shuttle launch in 1981. [Laughter]
Host: Wow.
Kathy Bolt: I was in like sixth grade at the time and I knew then that NASA was where I always wanted to work and have the opportunity. My goal was to meet and to know an astronaut and now I know every astronaut and every cosmonaut and every [International Partner] IP astronaut and it’s just one of those things that I’m eternally humbled and grateful —
Host: Wow.
Kathy Bolt: — to where I am today, and it’s only been through I would say divine intervention getting me through all the different wickets that I’ve gone through.
Host: Well, let’s fast forward to meeting your first astronaut when you were here. I guess in a training capacity, when you were actually in the role what was that like those first couple of astronauts training?
Kathy Bolt: It was actually very interesting, so the very first crews I trained was Expedition One, which was Bill Shepherd, and then we had Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko–
Host: That’s right.
Kathy Bolt: — for those three. And so at that time it was a very different era, you know, as far as like our two Russians, they weren’t all that familiar with how the female trainers at the time and then Bill was very, we call him Shep, Shep was always very focused on the details of learning stuff, so you really had to know your stuff because he was going to ask you a lot of questions, and the Russians were just like I don’t know if I want to listen to you or not.
Host: Wow.
Kathy Bolt: But we grew into that and we earned their respect, we learned what we needed to learn just in time to teach them what they needed to learn, and then over the course of several years we had them in training we gradually earned their respect, so.
Host: You make it sound so simple, but I’m sure it was not.
Kathy Bolt: It was tough.
Host: I mean that’s a tough crew, that’s a tough crew —
Kathy Bolt: Yes.
Host: — when you have something against you and you have this almost demand to perform at the highest level and to prove that you are the person that needs —
Kathy Bolt: That can do it.
Host: — that can do it, that can do the job.
Kathy Bolt: Yeah, and it was a team of us, I was only one of a team —
Host: Yeah.
Kathy Bolt: — that was supporting all of them, but all of us had that goal in mind, to prove ourselves first, learn what we needed to know and then be able to make sure we were training them on what we thought was important at the time. And things change over time, but from the first thing you train to what we train today is very different, but that’s the process you have to go through.
Host: I would love to explore that, let’s do that, like that’s basically the basis of this podcast is how that has changed and what all takes place. And part of that let’s start with you said you were a station trainer and you were training for station, but the legacy before that was shuttle. I’m sure you pulled some lessons and some practices from shuttle to some of those first crews that were training for expeditions on the space station.
Kathy Bolt: Yes, absolutely. So, for shuttle we trained the crew members how to fly that vehicle starting with individual systems training, when they had to know every single switch and button and circuit breaker inside that cockpit because everything was manual on the space shuttle. I mean there was a few things you could do from the ground, but the engine, while the crew was flying the vehicle. And so, when we first started training for the space station not really knowing how the software was going to really work, you have ideas, you know, and you have proofs of concepts, but nobody really trusts the software until it has been demonstrated for a while. So, we actually started training our space station crews to be very similar to our shuttle crews and we taught them a whole lot of details of how to operate every single little thing, how to go behind the panels and open things up and do all kinds of stuff. And then once we had the first couple of crews fly and they came back and said we hardly used any of what you trained —
Host: Oh.
Kathy Bolt: — because the ground did it all, you know? It was a very different concept, the ground controllers, mission control, they actually fly the space station. The crew can go up there and be the scientists, they can do maintenance on the space station, the hands-on stuff that we need, and they can focus on science, and then the ground team is who actually flies the vehicle and makes all the changes, sends commands to it and all that kind of stuff. That was such a different concept between what we had learned on shuttle and what we had to learn for the space station. And so, we evolved our training because of that.
Host: Wow, that’s such a different mindset.
Kathy Bolt: A very different mindset, yes.
Host: Now I’m sure you with your software background you had some kind of inkling that that was maybe going to be the case?
Kathy Bolt: Maybe, but I think we were just all so — the only thing we knew was space shuttle —
Host: Right.
Kathy Bolt: — and how to train. Well, I mean I’m sure the people before us obviously knew the early days, but shuttle was the only thing that we’d been training for 15 years and that was the only model we had at the time and so we just started with that model, but over time we’ve had to adjust that.
Host: Yes.
Kathy Bolt: And I see the same thing happening with our commercial crew partners today. You know, they are starting with, both of them, with brand-new vehicles that they think they understand and they have software that is designed to operate it, but until it gets some time, actually flight time and we learn how the crews are going to operate it then we’re just guessing at what we should focus our training on. We’ve got a whole set of things we think are the right things and that’s what we’re training the early crews, but I can see that evolving in the years ahead as we get more experience, so.
Host: That’s right, yeah, we can explore that too. I want to go back to station for just a second, you talked about there was almost a shift on what you thought you had to prioritize based on what you knew from shuttle and so you focused on that for station there, like, ah, we don’t need that, so what was the refocus, what were you starting to bring into the training flow to fill that gap of now you don’t know —
Kathy Bolt: What do we really need?
Host: Yes?
Kathy Bolt: That’s a good question. So what we changed instead of teaching minute details about all of the different systems, like the electrical power system and the computer system and everything, we decided to take it up a level and just teach kind of a foundational knowledge of all of the different systems, recognizing that if they got into serious trouble in any of those systems the ground team was going to be there to help resolve the issue. So, we looked at what things can cause the crew to be completely on their own, what are the malfunctions that will cause them to not have ground support and, therefore, have to respond by themselves. And then so we started looking at all those different scenarios and it turns out there’s only about four, five major scenarios that we can truly focus on and make sure they know how to recover from. One is like a major power failure that takes out their communication and how do they diagnose it and how they comm back with the ground, those are important steps we need to train. Emergencies, obviously, a fire depressor, ammonia, we focus on that a lot because those have to be instinctual responses. And then also things like loss of attitude control because again when you’re spinning out of control you may lose comm and so how the crew needs to know how to get comm back and how to regain attitude control. So that’s how it ended up evolving is looking for those things that can actually really cause the crew to have to do it on their own without ground team, and then the focus is not have them fix it all, but have them get comm back so that then they can hand it back over to the ground team to take over and do all the details.
Host: That’s an important distinction.
Kathy Bolt: It’s a huge distinction.
Host: Yeah, having that ability. You said almost like the priority is, OK, yeah, we’re spinning out of control, we have to make sure we understand how to regain communication because communication is a support team with plenty of people —
Kathy Bolt: Thousands of people on the ground.
Host: Thousands of people on the ground that can help you —
Kathy Bolt: Right.
Host: — and resolve the issues because, like you said, a lot of those components, those intricate details they’re controlled from the ground.
Kathy Bolt: Right.
Host: So that makes a lot of sense.
Kathy Bolt: Yeah, so that’s where we evolved, and our training flows started focusing on those types of scenarios and then also just routine day in the life things, like we changed our flows to actually have the crew practice a day in the life of space station. So, our Building 9 mockups, we have the entire space station modules in Building 9 and it’s the only place in the world that we have all of the modules, including most of our Russia modules there as well. And that used to just be, when I first started it was really just a Public Affairs building, all the gee whiz, let’s look at this, it really wasn’t much of a training facility. But we have grown into that being one of our prime training facilities because we needed people to actually put them in the environment, so put them in the U.S. Lab, put them in the Columbus module or the Node 1 module and have them use the tools that they’re going to use on a daily basis for six months up there and get used to that, and not just teach them piece parts, but actually put the whole picture together, so.
Host: Yeah, see from a Public Affairs’ perspective I’m like, man, there’s all this training going on, I need to do a tour, I need to do a media interview, come on.
Kathy Bolt: I’m sure.
Host: It’s always buys.
Kathy Bolt: It is always busy now and that’s one of the things I got to do as part of my early jobs was define and grow that training that we put in Building 9 because initially it was hard, people were a little hesitant to put things in Building 9 because it’s hard to schedule, you know, lots of things like that. But we’re just like it is so important for the crews to see that realistic environment for the big events — emergency training, the day in the life stuff, seeing stowage, cargo ops — all of those things are important in the environment and not just talked about in a classroom.
Host: So that’s really the benefit then is when you put them in that environment they have maybe more spatial training than maybe just a classroom that — because I guess the thought process is in the event of an emergency you have to react quick, you have to know where things are, you have to know kind of the direction you’re going.
Kathy Bolt: That’s true.
Host: So, having that training on the ground, whereas, up, down, left, right where is everything?
Kathy Bolt: Exactly.
Host: That is critical to the training.
Kathy Bolt: Very critical, where is your emergency mask, where is the —
Host: Yes.
Kathy Bolt: — the combustion analyzer that’s going to tell me whether my air is safe to breathe, where are those things physically located? What modules do I have to fly through to get to them? So, yes, absolutely, and we do that here for the integrated U.S. and Russia emergency training and then in Russia they get even more training on just the emergencies on the Russian segment because they have more of the Russia modules actually out at Moscow in the training facility there, so.
Host: So that’s going to be, we can dive into all the different parts or all the different things that the crews have to do including travel to go different places and learn all of these systems. One thing I did want to say was you talked about the progression of training from when you first started at station, learning from shuttle and adapting along the way, even you said the first three missions were rapid with how you were training the crews. You went from this minute detail to more of a broad perspective. How has it changed even to now, now that we’ve had nearly 20 years of continuous presence how has that training evolved over that time?
Kathy Bolt: I would say that what I’ve talked about has been the evolution over the last 20 years, not just the initial few years.
Host: Sure.
Kathy Bolt: But that’s when I got started, you know, so after every crew we’re always looking for feedback on what is it that you need more of or what is it that we need to focus more on? And I think in the last like five years is where we’ve finally hit the mark.
Host: Wow.
Kathy Bolt: On focusing on the right things for our crews. We focus on, you know, their payload training, on their science and the emergencies, and then these day in the life things.
Host: Yeah.
Kathy Bolt: And everything else is foundation level, but we don’t dive down into those details like we used to expect, and I just feel like we’ve finally gotten there.
Host: Yeah, that makes sense, I like that breakdown because the payloads are the things that they’re working all the time.
Kathy Bolt: Right.
Host: These are the experiments, these are the science things, they’re really tricky and they have to do them for hours and hours, so.
Kathy Bolt: Right, and that’s what they’re going to do most of their time up there.
Host: That’s what they’re going to do most of the time.
Kathy Bolt: Or maintenance.
Host: Yes, maintenance, too.
Kathy Bolt: And we teach them all about that.
Host: Yeah, the emergencies, always good to have that in the back of your mind just in case anything happens.
Kathy Bolt: Yes, have to have that.
Host: Ready to go at any time. And then day of a life, of course, you’re living on the space station, you need to learn how to do that effectively.
Kathy Bolt: Yes, and that’s actually one of the hardest things I think we can’t train as well on the ground. We can put them in Building 9, we can give them a day in the life simulation, but just the physical working in zero G, you can’t simulate that anywhere.
Host: Yeah.
Kathy Bolt: Even though we have a little, you know, buttons in Building 9 that we pretend like we give them zero G, so the folks looking on the catwalk think that. But anyway, it’s the first few weeks onboard is always adaptive, it’s time for them to really figure out how do I let this thing go and where is it going to go when I let it go? Is it going to stay right there, or did I put a little bit of pressure on it and now it’s flying across this module and I’ve got to go find it again? Or is the air circulating in this particular spot and, therefore, I need to Velcro it or something? There’s just all this stuff that we really, we can give them ideas and thoughts and we let them talk with previous crews to get those ideas, but the experience when they get up there is always going to have to just take a little bit of time.
Host: Yeah, and I know that’s carved out, right, whenever they get up there there’s specific time —
Kathy Bolt: Yes, they have some adaptive time, yeah, exactly.
Host: Adaptive time. So, let’s go through astronaut training from start to finish.
Kathy Bolt: OK.
Host: We have at the time of this recording, just in a couple days, we’re going to have astronaut candidates graduate, the 2017 class, so that’s really exciting. They’ve gone through two years now of training for that moment. What have they been focusing on for the first two years that they’ve been astronauts?
Kathy Bolt: That’s a really great question. And I have the privilege of being the Training Lead for the [Astronaut Candidates] ASCAN class. This particular ASCAN class, and so they have been focusing in the last, it’s really been two and a half years for them, they started in August of 2017 and they have been focusing on getting that foundational level of space station systems, so understanding the big picture of all the different systems. Understanding those major malfunctions that we talked about, we’ve actually given them what we call masteries, our tests to make sure they know how to respond to every single one of those major ones that we’ve talked about, and they’ve all passed with flying colors on that. And then they’ve been doing [Extravehicular Activity] EVA, or spacewalk training out at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, the EVA training has been focused on repetitive skills because all the EVAs have certain skills that the crew members need to know how to do. You need to know how to stay safe, keep your tethers on, you need to know how to use the tools, you need to know how to get yourself situated where you can move with some flexibility, but yet you’re not spinning around because you’ve really got to get your work done. There’s a lot of different skills and so they’ve been, it takes them like 9 NBL runs to go through those basic skills and get to just a certain stage where now they can then go focus on more advanced spacewalking skills and maybe practice for a real spacewalk and actually run through a timeline of that.
Host: And the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, this is that pool where they suit-up and they basically simulate, they write some procedures together and I guess they’re more skills based?
Kathy Bolt: Yes.
Host: So how to use the tools, get around?
Kathy Bolt: For the initial astronaut candidates, we start with just the skills.
Host: Got it.
Kathy Bolt: And work up to them doing a timeline of here’s a day, here’s six hours of a time you’re going to spend from getting out of the airlock to going and performing a task and then coming back into the airlock. They get to that by the end of Run 9, but it’s a work up to that, building their skills.
Host: Yes, it’s a lot of work and I guess it’s not intuitive but having those skills by the end of Run 9, yeah, they’re doing spacewalks.
Kathy Bolt: Right.
Host: That’s pretty cool.
Kathy Bolt: Right, and so they’ve done that. They’ve got robotics training, robotics is another big key. We need them to get a generic set of skills before they move on to their assigned training where they’ll get more specific skills. This is just like how to control the arm, how to understand where the arm is going to move based on the inputs of your controllers and all that stuff. So, they’ve gone through that.
Host: That’s the Canadarm 2 that’s on the space station, they train to maneuver that and capture things and move things.
Kathy Bolt: To maneuver that, yes, the track and capture pieces come later when they’re actually assigned the early astronaut training for the ASCANs is more of just how do I operate the arm as a whole so that when they’re moving it they have a clear understanding of where it’s going to move because it’s a very complex part. [Laughter] I have tried to learn, I’ve been through their training, but I’m not very good at it.
Host: Oh, wow, yeah, there’s a lot of axis —
Kathy Bolt: Yes, way too many.
Host: — and just different — yeah, yeah, so it’s —
Kathy Bolt: Too many degrees of freedom there. [laughter]
Host: Very cool. Yeah, I guess that makes sense why that would be part of their initial training flow that’s a critical thing that they have to know and learn how to do.
Kathy Bolt: Absolutely, yeah.
Host: That’s capturing cargo, doing repairs, all these different things that are very important.
Kathy Bolt: Yeah, some of the other things are they all have to learn Russian.
Host: OK.
Kathy Bolt: Russian to a certain language level and so that’s one of the key things they’ve had to focus on. And the same is true for cosmonauts, they have to learn English to a certain level. But all of our astronauts have to learn the Russian. And then also T-38 flight training, they’ve — we have the pilots that do the front seat training, so they learn how to fly the T-38s, and then anyone that has come in that does not have a pilot background, then they get back seat T-38 training, and so essentially they’re trained to be that back seat helper or support person. That way they can travel where they need to go with a pilot astronaut that can take them if they need to travel on the T-38s.
Host: OK.
Kathy Bolt: But it’s one of those teams-based skills that we try and focus on as well as the flight experience, so.
Host: Yeah, which is pretty important. I hear from a lot of the astronauts that I’ve talked to that almost, I guess for the most part I hear that Russian language training is probably one of the more difficult ones.
Kathy Bolt: It is, definitely one of the most difficult, unless you’re one of those people that just loves languages.
Host: Yes.
Kathy Bolt: And there’s always one or two that come in already knowing a lot of languages and Russian is easy, and then you have people like me who I’ve looked at the Russian language and had a few classes and I still can’t teach it, talk it or say anything. But they have to get to a certain level and that does take a lot of practice and a lot of study.
Host: So, for your role as the Chief Training Officer, now obviously you’re not going to be in the front seat flying the T-38 and saying, all right, this is how you do stuff, what’s your role, how are you actually working through their training process?
Kathy Bolt: So, my role is to work with the team of instructors who do do all of those individual pieces. So, I had the Russian training instructors on my team. I had T-38 representatives on my team. I have all the space station system trainers on my team. So, I have a team of instructors that actually do the teaching and it’s my job to just make sure that it’s an integrated training flow and so that they’re getting scheduled for all the right things, that we’re putting it in a logical format, that we have everything ready for them. Like they had to go off and do the T-38 training in Pensacola initially, so we had to make sure that all of that was set up for them for the non-pilots.
Host: Yes.
Kathy Bolt: Yeah, there’s just a lot of organization that I do to make sure that that training flow is executed. And then the last part I do is the routine ops and the emergency training is something that I lead as the team, we have a team of instructors that do it, but it’s my job to make sure that they execute everything, get to the point where we can, we know that they have successfully passed that training.
Host: But, yeah, you said two and a half years they’re going through their training, you are the conductor, you are the one that’s making sure that they are, they have that flow to get them through and graduate.
Kathy Bolt: Right.
Host: Right when they need to graduate with all the necessary skills, and like you said they all passed.
Kathy Bolt: Right.
Host: That’s great.
Kathy Bolt: They did wonderful, it was a great group to work with. And let me say one thing, so my job is, like you said, orchestrating that flow.
Host: Yes.
Kathy Bolt: But there is a group of ladies in the Astronaut Office, the ASCAN scheduler and then what we call our International Training Integrators or ITIs, and these ladies are the ones who actually put all the pieces together. So, I tell them here’s the flow, here’s the order, and here’s the big pieces that we want and we kind of want them in these timeframes, and they go, and they actually do all the scheduling of it and make sure it will happen, what will fit within a week. The International Training Integrators are the ones that figure out when are they in the United States, when are they in Russia, when are they in Europe or when are they in Japan. And so, it’s a joint effort to make all of those pieces come together.
Host: Very much so, a joint effort, a massive effort.
Kathy Bolt: A massive effort, yes.
Host: Sounds like a lot of work.
Kathy Bolt: Yes.
Host: Well, that’s awesome. How do you feel about to see them graduate here in a few days?
Kathy Bolt: I’m excited to see them graduate, yes. It was so fun to be able to work with them and to see them come in as just fresh new astronauts excited to be at NASA and to train them and to see them grow into who they are today and understand and seeing that development has been a pleasure. I’ve really enjoyed it. And the next step that nearly all of them are going to do is become capcoms.
Host: Oh.
Kathy Bolt: And so I get to mentor them as they move into the capcom flow as well because that’s one of the next things we want for them to do after they get out of their astronaut training is to become a capcom because then when they get assigned to fly on an actual mission they will understand how the ground works because they have been in mission control and they understand what the capcom job is to communicate with them. So, when they’re up there being the ones communicating down to the ground they understand all the logistics of what’s happening and that’s an extremely important transition I think that they have to go through, and so I’ll get to continue to see them do that side of it soon.
Host: Yeah, well, that’s a big key point is really they are transitioning —
Kathy Bolt: Yes.
Host: — to just more training. They’ve studied, they’ve taken tests, they’ve gone through all these —
Kathy Bolt: Yes.
Host: — different scenarios to prepare to become officially astronauts from astronaut candidates and now they’re just ready for that next step, which is more training, but let’s go into some of that. And starting with the operations, I think that’s a good place to start, you said you’re going to train them to be capcoms, so what is that going to be like? What are they — what skills are they going to have to learn, what’s the training to actually get them accustomed to learning the operations and the lingo and the protocol so they can say the right things and then be that person on console, that you are, that’s communicating to the crew?
Kathy Bolt: Well, the thing that they need, they already have the foundations, but with what they’ve gone through in the last two years, two plus years, what they need now is practicing in that communication. So, we put them in simulations.
Host: OK.
Kathy Bolt: And so they’ll end up doing anywhere from five to ten simulations, and in the simulations with the ground team we throw a whole lot of things at them, like big failures and massive, you know, big things that go wrong so that the ground team has to figure out how to deal with it and then the capcom has to tell the crew that — it’s a pretend crew, it’s obviously not the real crew —
Host: Sure.
Kathy Bolt: — but we have them practice how they would communicate what’s happening with all these failures that are going in during these simulations. And so that’s what it takes because they’ve already got all of the foundational knowledge that they need, now just put it together, be able to listen to what everyone is saying in mission control and put it in your own words. And sometimes that’s easy and sometimes that’s hard, there’s some people that take to it really quickly and they can very easily listen to all these conversations and then put it in your own words and communicate very clearly up to the crew, and there’s others that need a little bit more finesse and practice and that only comes with just doing more sims and teaching them, you know, guiding them along the way on how best to communicate certain things. So, I don’t know, it’s just one of those things. [Laughter]
Host: Yeah, is that one of the aspects of your job that you enjoy being capcom?
Kathy Bolt: I love being a capcom, yes. It’s one of the — I consider it a privilege to be able to be a capcom. It’s kind of an extra job, it’s not something that I do day to day, but it is something that I love to sign up for shifts and to support, especially when it’s a crew that I’ve trained with.
Host: Yes.
Kathy Bolt: To be up there. And so, it’s just every time I drive up into that parking lot of mission control and I park in that spot that says ISS capcom — I think of the responsibility of what I’m about to go in and do, what could potentially happen, and then I’m just humbled that I get to park there and be that person for the day. And there’s so many other people like me that do it as well, but it’s an honor, it’s a privilege.
Host: What a feeling, yeah, that’s got to be awesome, you’re the voice to the crew.
Kathy Bolt: Exactly, yes.
Host: And, like you said, you’ve spent some time with them, you’ve trained them, and you have a relationship with them.
Kathy Bolt: Yes.
Host: It’s almost like talking with your friends, your family.
Kathy Bolt: Yes, I’ll tell you one story, I hope this is OK. That one, I had one crew that I worked with and it had two rookie Russian cosmonauts, neither one of them had flown and which is unusual. A lot of the times we have repeat fires for Russian cosmonauts, but this particular crew had two rookies and then I had a U.S. crew member who had flown on shuttle but had never done the long duration space station. So, kind of they were all three fairly new guys, and I spent the whole two and a half years training them, I traveled with them around. I was in Russia with them, I was in Europe and Japan with them, got to know them all really well. And right before their launch the commander came up to me and he’s like, “Kathy, are you going to be on console when we arrive?” And I’m like, oh, yeah, I’ve already signed up for it, I’m going to be capcom. When you arrive, when you go through that door I’m going to be capcom. It’s like, “OK, good, because as soon as we get done with the family interviews I’m going down to the U.S. segment and I’m going to have the two rookies talk to you first because they’re going to be nervous to talk on the space to ground for the very first time.”
Host: Yeah.
Kathy Bolt: And we want, I want them to talk to you, and so they did.
Host: Wow.
Kathy Bolt: It was the best moment of my career because I saw them do their family thing and then sure enough I saw them head down, we had the video up, I saw them head down to the U.S. segment and I get the phone call or get the phone call on space to ground and then I just get to have this conversation with them. And they were just so happy because they were talking to someone they had talked to for two and a half years, and then after that they were just fine, they didn’t need any more than that, so it was all good. [Laughter]
Host: Wow.
Kathy Bolt: But that’s the type of bonding you can get when you work with a team or a crew for that long.
Host: Yeah, that’s really important because I guess that certain level of comfort will help them be successful. They’re looking for you, they want your support because they do want to be successful in that communication.
Kathy Bolt: Right.
Host: And that level of ease will help them to do that.
Kathy Bolt: Yes, yes.
Host: So, there is a wonderful aspect to that.
Kathy Bolt: And he was just breaking the ice for them, yes.
Host: Yeah, yeah.
Kathy Bolt: Really that’s all it was, but it was a special moment for me that I got to be a part of that, so.
Host: Wonderful. Yes, operations training, super important for these next steps after they’re graduating to become astronauts, from astronaut candidates. What else are they in for when it comes to training and getting ready for those next missions?
Kathy Bolt: Well, once they get through the initial training for the spacewalks and robotics and stuff then we have a lot of proficiency training, so proficiency is just doing the same skills over and over again and adding some new things to it. So, they’re going to continue to go through robotics and EVA training even during this time before they’re assigned an actual mission. The capcom thing we’ve already talked about. And then they’ll also start doing more probably maintenance and payload, our science training. Some of our astronauts come in with a whole lot of experience on maintenance and tools and other stuff, and then there’s people like me who know nothing about, you know, you could put a tool in front of me I wouldn’t even know what it’s called probably because I just don’t work with that.
Host: Sure.
Kathy Bolt: And so, you have that diversity with our astronaut classes as well. And so for those that are, that don’t have as much familiarity with tools and the use of tools, then we have some of what we call field maintenance training, our field medical training for folks that don’t have a good, have much of a medical background, and those are the types of things that we try and put them in when they’re unassigned. So, they’ve been through their ASCAN training, they’re not assigned to a mission yet, so how do we shore-up all of the skills to make them set-up for success as soon as they do get that assignment and those are the types of things we’ll do. So, they’ll go out for maintenance training, they’ll go out to Ellington Field and work with the maintenance technicians for the T-38 for like a week or two at a time.
Host: Oh.
Kathy Bolt: And they’re following the procedures of the maintenance guys out there, but they’re learning how to utilize the tools and all that stuff and they come out, away understanding so much more than they could if we just told them, yes, that’s a wrench and that’s a socket or that’s this, but actually doing something with it is the key on learning how to utilize it.
Host: Yes, now that is huge, like we mentioned this in the beginning when it comes to breaking down what they’ll actually be doing on space station, maintenance is one of those things.
Kathy Bolt: Maintenance is one of them.
Host: A lot of time going to be dedicated to that.
Kathy Bolt: Right.
Host: You’re going to fix things, you’re going to have to pull racks out, you’re going to have to know exactly which tools to use so that’s huge. The other thing we talked about was science, payloads, being able to do that, and now I’m sure that’s a huge part of their training as well.
Kathy Bolt: It is, and we try and get some of that during those two and a half years, but there’s always more, you know? So, there’s, you know, we do actually a lot of rodent training, understanding how do we take care of the rodents that we send up there for science. Also bio training, how they handle cell cultures and DNA samples and all that kind of stuff because there’s so much intricate work that they have to perform for scientists here on the ground, but the astronaut is the hands and the eyes up onboard and so we need to train them, you know, what are the safe practices, what are the clean room practices you want to make sure that you observe when you’re doing the science experiment for the people on the ground, so.
Host: See, while you’re describing this I’m starting to get a better sense of just what it takes to be an astronaut because I’m thinking of when you’re designing those training flows you said you’ll put them in and have them work on the T-38s for a week, it’s almost like they’re putting on that hat and they’re thinking like a technician and they have to think like a technician for a week and then, OK, now switch hats, put on your scientist hat and now you’ve got to think like a scientist for a week.
Kathy Bolt: Yes.
Host: It’s these different mindsets and they’re all smashed together into this one person called an astronaut that has to do everything onboard.
Kathy Bolt: That’s a really good description.
Host: Yeah.
Kathy Bolt: And I think that’s what this crew feels like when they’re in that two-and-a-half-year training flow, either for the assigned mission or as an ASCAN because every day it may have a different focus. Today I may be learning just about the electrical power system on the space station and tomorrow I might be in the pool doing a spacewalk, and completely different skillsets, completely different mindsets, but it’s all in this week.
Host: Yeah.
Kathy Bolt: Yeah.
Host: So, when you’re designing those flows how do you ensure that they’re going to retain that information or be able to recall it?
Kathy Bolt: It’s a good question.
Host: Yeah.
Kathy Bolt: I think repetition is the best way.
Host: That makes sense.
Kathy Bolt: You know, again for the ASCANs we train them on certain skills so that we build a foundation and then it’s that repetition, our proficiency training that we want to call it, where we just keep them up to date. And then there are some tests along the way, you know, they have to pass certain quals as a robotics operator, they have to pass certain quals as a spacewalk EVA to be able to be assigned to that, and they have to pass certain masteries is what we call them for the space station systems, how to handle those big failures. They actually have a test that they have to pass, and then after they pass those tests we just try and make sure that they see it periodically until they get assigned as a real crew, and then we’re very focused on making sure they get lots of repetition before they fly.
Host: Yeah, I see it on their timeline, sometimes even when they’re in space some refresher training —
Kathy Bolt: Yeah.
Host: — particularly when it comes to the robotics.
Kathy Bolt: Robotics, yes.
Host: I know that like you’re about to capture a dragon, OK, let’s make sure I know how to capture a cargo vehicle.
Kathy Bolt: Right, we have what’s called onboard training for OBT flow for crews, it leads up to every single cargo mission, it’ll lead up to probably our crew missions coming forward, but anytime they use the robotic arm because it’s so dangerous if you do something wrong.
Host: Right.
Kathy Bolt: Then you want to make sure that they’re comfortable with it, and so we set-up a flow that allows them to get some time dedicated while you’re onboard to refresh those skills.
Host: Yeah, it’s almost like, you know, I’m trying to think of what it would take to work through that training and there’s like, how I’m imagining it is some sort of, there’s a logical flow of information and thought process that have to go into a task. So if you’re, for example, I said your scientist hat, you have to think like a scientist, you have to make sure you’re putting on your gloves, that you’re working in a sterile environment, that you’re doing it in a certain way, but that’s a different process, a different way of logically thinking than doing robotic arm training. That’s just a different way, so to almost rewire your brain, I would think to rewire your brain to think like a robotic arm operator right before you do the task is super important.
Kathy Bolt: Yeah.
Host: Yeah.
Kathy Bolt: It is.
Host: You mentioned emergency training, that was another one that you said was very critical when you were onboard, to have that always in the back of your mind, now what are those training flows like?
Kathy Bolt: So, for emergencies, there’s three types of emergencies on the space station. There’s either fire or a rapid depress where you’re losing atmosphere, or it could be a toxic atmosphere, and really about the main toxic atmosphere that you could have on space station is if we have an ammonia leak because there’s ammonia in our external modules that are —
Host: That’s how it cools the outside of the space station.
Kathy Bolt: Right, yeah, there are radiators. And so we focus the crew on how to respond to those three types of emergencies and that includes where to find the mask, and how do I don the mask that I need for the breathing protection, how do I analyze the situation and put out the fire if it’s a fire, or how do I close all the hatches in a logical sequence so that I can maybe find which module is leaking if I’m losing pressure somewhere. And then for the toxic atmosphere we have a special mask that they have to put on, they have to purge it because they could literally be one breath to death if they don’t get that mask on properly.
Host: Wow.
Kathy Bolt: And so, we want to make sure that they are trained instinctually to find that mask, get it on, and be safe.
Host: So, this is where that Building 9 training comes in.
Kathy Bolt: Exactly.
Host: Having that spatial training to understand where things are is super important to this emergency procedure.
Kathy Bolt: Right, absolutely, all the emergency training is done in Building 9, other than the initial classroom lessons where we just talk about the philosophy. Here’s in general what it’s going to look like, and then all the rest of it is hands-on in Building 9 or in Russia because they also do the — there’s a whole different set of equipment and a whole different response if the emergency is on the Russian side and if it’s on the U.S. side. And part of that is just because of the way they were built, like fire response on the U.S. side, the crew leaves the segment and they don’t fight the fire initially because the U.S. segment is designed to put the fire out. It’s very compartmented little sections and once you burn all the oxygen in that one little section it should put itself out, so it shouldn’t propagate, at least that’s the design. And so, our firefighting philosophy takes that into account.
Host: Yeah.
Kathy Bolt: On the Russian side their modules are not compartmentalized, they have stuff behind racks or behind panels that flow from one end of the module to the other end of the module, so if a fire starts anywhere in the middle it could go anywhere. And so, you know, it’s a different philosophy. If the fire is on the Russian side you’re going to be opening up those panels and with fire extinguisher and you’re going to be putting it out right then and there, you’re not going anywhere, you’re looking to save the station.
Host: Wow.
Kathy Bolt: On the U.S. side we’re going to evacuate and make sure you’re safe and then we’ll go see if the fire is out and if it’s not we can do something about it to make the fire go out, but we’re not going to worry about save it immediately kind of thing.
Host: So, figuring out where the fire is is almost the first step to the next set of procedures because depending on where it is you have a different line of —
Kathy Bolt: That’s exactly what it is, yes.
Host: Wow.
Kathy Bolt: First step, find the smoke, see which module it’s in and then that directs your response, but–
Host: Yes, and this is actually — we’ve been talking a lot about space station training because that’s your focus, right? You were talking about when you go to the space station these are the things you have to think about. They’re also going to be on other vehicles, too, right? They go to the Soyuz, they go to Moscow and they train, or maybe it’s Star City —
Kathy Bolt: Star City, yeah.
Host: — to train for the Soyuz and they learn all the different parts about that vehicle and then they have to think about when they go to the space station this is what they have to think about when they’re there.
Kathy Bolt: Right.
Host: One thing I think we did talk about, this was the last part in your sequence, so this is what they’re going to train the most with is day in the life, how to live, so what is that like, learning exactly how to just carry yourself when it comes to space station life?
Kathy Bolt: So after we teach them all the basics of, you know, these are the tools you’re going to have, these are the computers you’re going to have, this is how you keep track of all of your stuff, we have what’s called an Inventory Management Database System that tells them where all of their clothes are, all of their food is, every single tool is. And so, they need to know how to utilize all those tools, and then we put them in what we call a day in the life sim, usually in Building 9, they’re nearly all in Building 9 because again you can put them inside the space station mockups. You give them a timeline of activities, just like they would have onboard, and then they have to then just utilize those tools that they’ve been trained on to get through that set of tasks. Find all of your equipment that’s hidden behind all of these storage lockers, we don’t just set it out for them, they have to go and find the piece here, find another piece in this module, find another piece in this module, and then I’ve got it all so now I can go work on something. That’s the way it’s going to be when they get onboard, so we want to do that for them in Building 9 as well, so.
Host: Oh, that’d be fun, it’s like scavenger hunt training. [Laughter]
Kathy Bolt: It is scavenger hunt, we do have some scavenger hunts, yeah. We also have the toilet and the galley setup so that they can practice the use of, not actually really using the toilet, but go through the motions of what they would have to do to use the toilet.
Host: Right.
Kathy Bolt: Know how to turn it on. We often throw malfunctions at them so that they would have to talk about how, what would I do if I saw these lights come on and what’s the response and how do I fix it? Also, for the galley we have all of that mocked up in Building 9 as well, the galleys, how they prepare their food. We don’t have any actual water that they can put into their food or heat it up, but we have all of the components to where they can practice what it is they would do. And where we’ve been working to try and get the actual galley that is working, which is currently in Building 5, it’s a different building. We’ve been trying to get that moved over to Building 9 so that we can make it more realistic and actually have them put their food together, but so far, we haven’t done that just yet. But for the ASCANs we have them just go over to Building 5 and utilize the galley themselves so that they can get used to figuring out how do I prepare my own food, how do I get my drinks ready for the day, where do I store them when I want them to be cold and not just lukewarm?
Host: Right.
Kathy Bolt: All of those things are things that we kind of try and make sure they know.
Host: Yes, because during their lunch break they want to know how to make the food, how to make it the way they want to make it.
Kathy Bolt: Yeah.
Host: And definitely the bathroom is a very important part of living in space and if anything goes wrong it is a complicated piece of equipment, so learning how to deal with that, all very important.
Kathy Bolt: Yeah.
Host: We did, I did sort of mention working with other vehicles besides the space station. I know one of the things moving forward is now introduced into their training flow is working with commercial crew vehicles.
Kathy Bolt: That’s correct.
Host: This is something that’s relatively new, and we’re going to be flying them this year.
Kathy Bolt: Yeah, I’m excited.
Host: Yeah, so it’s real, it’s happening.
Kathy Bolt: It is.
Host: What are we doing to train them for these vehicles?
Kathy Bolt: Well, I’ll tell you it’s a whole new concept because since we stopped flying the space shuttle the only access has been through the Soyuz and the Russians, they train the Soyuz, that’s the vehicle that goes up and comes down and the Russians solely train that. So, to have our crews actually training the vehicle that’s going to take them up and bring them home is just something we haven’t had to do in a really long time. So, the focus for those companies is to teach them what it is they need to know for the launch and for the journey up there and the rendezvous and the docking, which are the key parts, and then how to undock and come home safely. And those, that sounds easy when you think of it just in these big parts, but you think of all the things that can go wrong —
Host: Oh, yeah.
Kathy Bolt: — then that’s where you’ve got to focus on, you know, what happens if the launch does not go as expected and they need to immediately come home? They call it launch escapes, what happens at different points. It takes eight minutes, almost eight minutes to get up to orbit, at any point during that eight minutes there’s a different potential sequence for where they’re going to end up landing.
Host: Wow.
Kathy Bolt: And how do we train them for those type of things, how do we train them for issues if we can’t dock the first time and we need to come back around and re-rendezvous and come back around and dock? So those are the types of things we’re going to be focusing our training on going forward. And then just how do I operate this vehicle? So, there’s a toilet in that vehicle, there’s a galley in that vehicle, they need to know how to do that stuff in the tiny little capsules that they’re going to be in versus the space station. And there will be up to four people in these capsules and so they need to know where everything is located and be able to take care of themselves, for the fires, for the emergencies that if that happens, too, so.
Host: Yeah, and that’s a little different in the way that we do it because I guess for you you’re here at the Johnson Space Center, here’s the systems we use on the space station, it’s ours and we get to play with it as we want, but this is working with other companies, so how has that been?
Kathy Bolt: Well, for the last year I’ve been privileged to go out and actually help SpaceX with their crew training.
Host: Oh, cool.
Kathy Bolt: NASA sent me out there just to kind of be a liaison and to guide them because they had not trained crews except for cargo missions, they hadn’t trained, spent time training crews from beginning to end on how do I fly a vehicle and how do I learn everything about this vehicle, only how to open up a hatch and get the cargo out, you know?
Host: Yeah.
Kathy Bolt: And there’s a big difference in that.
Host: Right.
Kathy Bolt: And so, I’ve had the privilege of going out there and just helping them figure out what a training flow should look like, what are the key things at least initially that we think we ought to train, what are the most important things from a crew perspective that they’re going to want to know and want to have repetition on? But it’s hard for our crews because they, most of this stuff is at the commercial company, you know, all of the mockups, most of them are at the commercial company. We do now have a few here at JSC where they can get some limited training here, but the majority will be offsite. And but when you think about the fact that they’ve been spending all this time going to Russia to learn Soyuz and they spend like almost half their year every year in training in Russia then going to California or doing it at least in the United States may be a little bit better.
Host: Yeah, so what are the things we have to start thinking about, thinking about commercial crew, thinking about space station, everything we’ve learned, what are some of the key elements we have to think about when things shift a little bit further from Earth and now we’re thinking about Moon?
Kathy Bolt: Yeah, so to me the training will have to focus more on skills, generic skills, like the maintenance, the medical, just how do I troubleshoot things? Right now, we’ve gotten so dependent upon the ground being the ones that troubleshoot or fix the problems because we have constant comm with the ground unless something major happens that we’ve already talked about.
Host: And you mentioned the procedures to cover from an emergency are to get comm back —
Kathy Bolt: Are to get comm back, yeah.
Host: — and rely on the ground, yeah.
Kathy Bolt: Exactly but going forward whether it’s Moon or eventually to Mars you’re not going to have that constant comm and the crew members are going to have to be more self-sufficient and be able to troubleshoot things on their own, so it’s kind of, it’s a very different mindset than where we’ve been for the last 20 some odd years. I think team skills is extremely important and the Astronaut Office has been focusing on that as well. Team skills are things like how do I take care of myself, but how do I take care of the team, you know?
Host: Yeah.
Kathy Bolt: It’s focusing on both of those aspects and you never want someone who only thinks about themselves because you’re going to be living in space, off the planet or in some Gateway, so for a long period of time with one or two or four, whatever number of people, and you’ve really got to know how to get along with people.
Host: Yeah, I wouldn’t want to fly with that guy, right?
Kathy Bolt: Yeah, exactly, right.
Host: Just thinking about himself, yeah.
Kathy Bolt: Right, and so there’s a lot of that I think expeditionary skills are what we call them because that’s what you need for those long duration timeframes. But I can see us focusing more on instead of specifics of how do I operate an actual space station, how do I train my crews just to understand enough to be able to troubleshoot things and to do maintenance and to resolve issues, critical thinking.
Host: Wow.
Kathy Bolt: Things like that.
Host: Looking at your career here at NASA and training crews and everything that you’ve accomplished, all the crews that you’ve talked to, the people you’ve worked with, the lessons you’ve learned, what’s a key takeaway from just the snapshot of your career, something that you want people to know or you think is a valuable lesson looking at your career?
Kathy Bolt: Well, I think the most important thing is that it is a team effort for everything that’s done here at NASA and it’s an international team. You know, we’ve got the people here and we’ve got folks that are in Russia and Europe and Japan and Canada and many other countries that are all a part of this team. And so, when we do something it’s never an individual, it’s never about the astronaut. They’re the face and maybe the eyes and the hands, but they, it is a team effort, and that’s what I think I see as, like I said earlier, just being privileged to be a part of that team and to sometimes be the voice for that team or to organize the path for that team when it comes to the training, that’s been the highlights of my career.
Host: Kathy Bolt, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
Kathy Bolt: Thank you, I appreciate it.
[ Music ]
Host: Hey, thanks for sticking around. Really great conversation we had with Ms. Kathy Bolt about everything astronaut training from the moment they enter the door to the moments before they launch to space. It was a fascinating conversation. I hope you enjoyed it. If you like this podcast check out some of our others on NASA.gov/podcast. We’ve got a ton of episodes here on Houston We Have A Podcast, and a lot of other podcasts about different topics here at NASA. We are on the NASA Johnson Space Center pages of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Use the hashtag #askNASA on your favorite platform to submit an idea for the show. Just make sure to mention it’s for Houston, We Have A Podcast. This episode was recorded on January 6th, 2020. Thanks to Alex Perryman, Pat Ryan, Norah Moran, Belinda Pulido and Jennifer Hernandez. Thanks again to Kathy Bolt for taking the time to come on the show. If you like what you heard give us a rating and feedback on whatever platform you’re listening to, to tell us how we did. We’ll be back next week.