The development of the mainland's aerospace industry is booming day by day, and this is inseparable from the efforts of countless outstanding astronauts. Astronauts are selected on extremely strict criteria, and they can only pass the test after rigorous, comprehensive study and rigorous training. And the hardships are even more difficult for women, what kind of hardships has the flying goddess Wang Yaping encountered?
Female astronaut
Wang Yaping was not actually an aerospace professional at the beginning. She has excellent grades since she was a child, and with her excellent academic level in high school, she was exempted from the college entrance examination and admitted to the Third Aviation Academy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Wang Yaping can be said to be a model of "other people's children", but her success is indispensable in addition to talent, persistence and hard work.
After entering the college of her dreams, Wang Yaping decided to become an outstanding female pilot, which also destined her to embark on a difficult road full of blood and sweat.
Top colleges and universities have high academic requirements for students, and in addition to physical fitness tests, they also attach great importance to physical fitness tests.
As a novice pilot, Wang Yaping's class schedule is full of professional courses, and in addition to complex theoretical courses, the exams of practical courses are even more cruel.
Pilots need to have excellent physical fitness, so Wang Yaping can not slack off in her spare time, she needs to carry out physical training independently, and many students can often be seen sweating in the school's gym and playground.
The need for a detailed understanding of the theory and the high standard of physical fitness required to be a challenge for a young college student, however, Wang Yaping has adapted brilliantly to the self-disciplined life in the military academy.
In the daily flight training, Wang Yaping has always maintained a high degree of concentration, every flight as a major event in life, through this intention, Wang Yaping has accumulated a lot of flight training, and is a leader in his class.
In this way, Wang Yaping graduated successfully, and an important opportunity came to her, an opportunity to become an astronaut. The astronaut actually deviated from her original vision, but if this opportunity was missed, she didn't know when she would try again.
In order not to regret herself, she signed up for the selection program for female astronauts with the mentality of trying.
The reserve personnel who can participate in the selection of astronauts are the same as her, they are the dragons and phoenixes among people, and their strength is comparable. Wang Yaping was not afraid of danger and calmly coped with every test.
The dream of flying
After graduating from the military academy, Wang Yaping has carried out many major military missions. At critical moments, she can always deal with it calmly and save the day. It is in the tempering of actual combat again and again that she has cultivated a strong flying ability and the quality of not being afraid of danger.
The reason why Wang Yaping can maintain a good attitude is related to her professional background. During her studies at the military academy, she had already accumulated a lot of flying experience. After graduating from military school, she entered the army to work.
Due to his outstanding professional ability, Wang Yaping has been assigned to participate in a variety of military exercises and has won the first place in military flight competitions.
The actual combat training in the army allowed Wang Yaping to see what it means to fly in the real sense, and she was able to calmly restrain and deal with mistakes in the face of flight.
In this way, she has accumulated more and better psychological quality and flexible practical experience than ordinary people, which is a treasure that even a thousand gold can't buy.
However, the strength of the selected candidates should not be underestimated. After many rounds of testing, Wang Yaping not only showed the examiner the qualities that a prospective astronaut should have in terms of theoretical knowledge, physical fitness, and practical operation, but also impressed the people present with her humorous personal charm and tenacious psychological quality.
Wang Yaping also realized that astronauts are an extremely important profession with great responsibilities during the rigorous selection process, and she decided to embark on the road of aerospace and become an outstanding astronaut in China.
lived up to expectations, Wang Yaping finally passed the selection and became a quasi-astronaut.
But the suffering given to Wang Yaping by God did not end here, but intensified.
Astronauts will face a very different environment from the Earth in the future, so they will need to be adapted for a long time. Even the most rigorous adaptive training still can't simulate the most realistic space environment. It can be seen that as an astronaut, you have to deal with extremely complex situations.
Wang Yaping and other colleagues began the training together. The daily schedule is once again full, and there is little time off. After the training, there was another selection waiting for them, so in order to meet the standard, everyone raised the spirit of 12 points and waited for it.
Wang Yaping actively participates in daily training. To simulate the experience of adapting to weightlessness in space, she had to endure several times the gravity in a centrifuge every day, in addition to a lot of grueling training modes.
Participating in this kind of training is a test for Wang Yaping, but in order to become an excellent astronaut, this is the road that must be taken. She gritted her teeth, swallowed the pain, and walked on.
When the exhausting training is over, Wang Yaping often looks at the starry sky outside the training venue, every star is so dazzling, the moon hidden by the clouds, as if she is half shy, she sometimes wonders, the moon she sees in space will have another beauty.
As soon as she thought of the possibility of flying in the future, her heart was full of enthusiasm, and if she persevered, she must persevere.
No matter how hard and difficult the days are, there will be an end to the day, and Wang Yaping's persistence has finally paid off. She was recognized by the department and was officially approved to become an astronaut.
Wang Yaping, who got the news, was overjoyed, and for the sake of the future aerospace project, she repacked her bags and stepped into a new stage.
Dream of space
In order to prepare for the manned spacecraft project, in addition to ensuring daily training, Wang Yaping often communicates with colleagues in the aerospace department to understand the design of the entire project in advance. She secretly put a lot of effort into the successful completion of the project.
In 2013, the Shenzhou 10 spacecraft launched by the mainland officially set off. Wang Yaping finally realized his dream with his love and yearning for space.
Wang Yaping, who was sitting in the cabin, although she had already understood all the natural phenomena that she might experience in the future in her previous training, actually faced all this made her feel strange and special.
The spacecraft leaves Earth and flies into the vast universe, from the familiar research institute to the endless dark abyss, which is a special experience for every astronaut.
The 15-day space mission trip was Wang Yaping's first close "contact" with space. She didn't expect that after eight years, she would embark on the journey again, and the tasks given to her by the people would be heavier, and the expectations of the country would be greater.
Nearly half a year, she needs to spend in space, in the face of her young daughter missing her, 47-year-old Wang Yaping is also very moved, she proudly told her daughter that her mother is going to space to pick stars for her, such a romantic vision seems to be only Wang Yaping can give her daughter.
The inconvenience of life in space
On October 16, 2021, the Shenzhou-13 spacecraft flew to space as scheduled, starting a space journey, in addition to Wang Yaping, there are also her colleagues Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu Comrades to carry out space missions together.
But that's very different from a 15-day space flight. This mission requires three astronauts to "live" in space, and the food, clothing, housing and transportation are all solved in the spacecraft.
The weightless environment of space makes human life extremely inconvenient. When drinking water, water droplets may float on their hands, so astronauts only drink water with water bags, and food may fly around, so the things stored in the spacecraft are carefully screened, but despite this, the dishes are very complete.
The most inconvenient thing may be Wang Yaping, how to solve the inevitable menstrual period of women in the space environment? Although it is a little embarrassing, as long as you pay more attention to the toilet, there is no great difficulty, and there is only some inconvenience.
In addition to the problems that need to be solved in life, the astronauts ushered in the mission of spacewalking, and Wang Yaping finally saw those "stars".
Wang Yaping was carrying a spacesuit of 120 pounds, and she saw the world beyond the earth through the mask. Between the breath and the breath, there seemed to be nothing but her and the world. Wang Yaping also admitted frankly in an interview that witnessing the appearance of the universe made her feel a lot.
After 183 days of space life, three astronauts sent plant seeds into space, bringing new progress to follow-up research. Wang Yaping also started a space lecture, vividly showing the difference between space and the earth's environment for the children in space.
Wang Yaping said that the most beautiful time on the earth is the night, when the night comes, the earth is extremely bright, she seems to see her hometown, see her own children, thousands of miles apart, and her heart is also connected.
When the mission ended, the three astronauts also returned home smoothly. But when they returned, there were also difficulties waiting for them. Wang Yaping in the news could only sit in a wheelchair when he left the cabin, but his mind and spirit remained normal.
The reason why astronauts are unable to move normally after leaving the capsule is because astronauts in the space environment can cause osteoporosis and their muscles are also relaxed.
The abrupt transition from weightlessness to Earth's normal stress regime typically takes a while for astronauts to re-adapt. These anomalous scenes do not harm lives, but they do cause some physical inconvenience.
From Wang Yaping's experience, we can see that becoming an astronaut not only requires great and arduous efforts from individuals, but also requires 100% adaptability in the process of committing to the mission.
The "hardships" endured by the astronauts are all for the sake of the rapid development of the mainland's aerospace industry, and more importantly, for mankind to have a more progressive understanding of space.
epilogue
Wang Yaping has gone through countless hardships and finally realized her space dream, although many of them are not easy, but she has never complained of being tired.
When she goes to space, she always has a beautiful smiling face. Through her experience, we also understand more about the difficulties of the Aerospace Institute, let us cheer for China's aerospace, and hope that in the future, we will have more outstanding astronauts.