The head of the Yuri Gagarin CTC, Maxim Kharlamov, explained why today's cosmonauts, as before, are taught to fly on jet planes.
– Because the peculiarity of the professional activity of an astronaut is not only the ability to repair a device or conduct an experiment. The main thing is daily, every minute readiness for any kind of emergency situations, – he explained in an interview with kp.ru.
According to him, it is important for cosmonauts to learn how to act in a critical situation, to make the right decisions. And flying an airplane forms these skills.
In addition, absolutely everyone in the cosmonaut team must jump with a parachute and perform long jumps. Moreover, during such jumps, the astronaut not only falls and waits for the height at which the parachute can be deployed. In flight, he also performs various exercises for concentration and intelligence. And such training takes place more than once, as a rule, they take several years. And many astronauts even have experience of hundreds of jumps.
Earlier we talked about how astronauts are prepared for spacewalks.
