The development of a commercial crew service

The growth of the commercial spaceflight industry in recent years led to the April 2010 birth of Astronauts4Hire (A4H), a nonprofit organization aimed at developing the market and supply of commercial astronaut candidates. To date, A4H is comprised of 22 carefully selected Flight Members (the “Astronauts4Hire”) with a total of 30 advanced degrees, 13 SCUBA divers, 11 pilots, and 15 Zero- or High-G trained. A4H´s first for-hire job was completed in February 2011 in a Zero-G environment, and first official training session was completed in July 2011 which included sea survival, emergency egress, centrifuge, altitude chamber, and spatial disorientation training. The first class of A4H Research Specialist astronauts will be fully trained for parabolic and suborbital flight by early 2012. As with virtually all entrepreneurial firms, Astronauts4Hire´s identity evolves as the market and our understanding of it changes rapidly. This paper will describe the evolving nature of the developing enterprise, overall objectives for improving the status quo in commercial astronaut selection and development, and the training plan for A4H Flight Members. Specific training topics will include the rationale for selecting Flight Member training requirements and human factors integration of commercial crew with vehicles. Further, we will discuss the current and projected future market for commercial astronauts and A4H´s role in its development.