Pilot astronaut candidates require 1,000 hours as a command pilot in high-performance jet aircraft. Mission specialist astronaut candidates do not need flight experience, but they must have at least three years of professional experience related to the mission. Payload specialists must have the education and training to conduct their experiment. After successfully completing this training, they become astronauts. NASA brings in instructors from its centers and from universities to teach aerodynamics, physics, physiology, spacecraft-tracking techniques, and other subjects.
Experienced astronauts lecture on such topics as how to communicate with astronauts in space.
Other NASA personnel discuss the people, equipment, and funds that make space flight possible. Classroom work has been an important part of astronaut training since the Mercury program. Mercury and Gemini astronauts took courses in rocket engines, flight mechanics, and computer theory. In addition to those subjects, Apollo astronauts studied the geology of the moon. They also traveled to Hawaii, Iceland, Oregon, and other locations to study volcanic rocks similar to those on the moon.