Training for the Shuttle: From the Personal Papers of Sally Ride and David Brown

What first comes to mind when you think of astronaut training? For most people it is images of prospective candidates performing very strenuous physical workouts to prepare their bodies for the gravity forces they encounter in outer space. However, that is only one part of the training process. The other part consists of learning the technical ins and outs of the spacecraft that the astronauts will crew. In the era of the Space Shuttle from the 1980s to the early 2010s, NASA astronauts would receive numerous information booklets and other written materials which would explain to them how to operate the Space Shuttle. The National Air and Space Museum Archives holds two rich collections related to this intense technical training in the personal papers of Sally K. Ride and David M. Brown, showcasing the difference between the designs of the shuttle in the 1980s and the 2000s.

Sally K. Ride

When Sally Ride became the first American woman in space on June 24, 1983, she launched on one of NASA’s first Space Shuttles: Challenger. Yet a few years before her historic flight, she, like the rest of her astronaut peers, had to learn the mechanics of how to operate the newly created Space Shuttle fleet. The Sally K. Ride Papers at the National Air and Space Museum Archives contains the shuttle training materials Ride used, along with her own personal notes. The sample notes from Ride’s training period reveal how studious she was in her preparations.

Besides learning how to operate the Space Shuttle, Ride would also have to be well versed in the specifics of her assigned missions. These would take the form of packets related to the different tasks she and her fellow astronauts would have to perform at different stages of their respective shuttle flights. For Ride’s first Space Shuttle flight, she, and the rest of the STS-7 (Space Transportation System mission 7) crew were assigned to deploy two communication satellites, along with the first Shuttle Pallett Satellite (SPAS-1); perform experiments in the shuttle cargo bay and do testing on the tracking and data relay satellites (TDRS). Sally Ride’s main job was operating the robotic arm, Canadarm 1, to retrieve SPAS-1. The Sally K. Ride Papers contain items from both of Ride’s shuttle flights, including the Ascent Pocket Checklist (STS-7) and Entry Checklist (STS-41G).

David M. Brown

When David M. Brown became an astronaut in 1996, training for Space Shuttle missions had become a different beast altogether. For one, the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 had greatly affected the work culture of NASA, with an emphasis on always acknowledging that space travel is difficult. The remaining ships in the Space Shuttle fleet were redesigned to have additional mechanisms, including an escape hatch for the crew if a situation like Challenger happened again. Among the numerous manuals and handbooks is a document relating to this new design feature: Flight Procedures Handbook, Ascent/Aborts (OI-25), [Folder 1] and [Folder 2].

As he was assigned the position of Mission Specialist 1 for STS-107 (Columbia), David Brown also had to know about the various tasks he would have to perform. These included being knowledgeable about SPACEHAB Double Research Module, which STS-107 was being used for SPACEHAB’s inaugural flight to conduct scientific research. Among the numerous manuals that David Brown had to read to operate SPACEHAB were a Basic Operations Checklist and an Experiment Operations Checklist Supplement.

Despite this new component of the Shuttle’s abort mechanism, Brown’s training was not much different than Sally Ride’s. The main difference between the two astronauts was the abundance of training materials that Brown had to read to traverse outer space with an established space shuttle fleet. Both the Sally K. Ride Papers and the David M. Brown Papers contain an insightful window into how NASA astronauts were heavily invested in studying the technical aspects of the Space Shuttle.