MS. STILSON: Great. Irvin from Rochester wants to know, are there physical or
psychological tests that must be passed by an astronaut? If so, what are they?
MS. HIRE: There are a lot of physical and psychological tests that are performed during astronaut selection.
And you've probably seen some of these, especially with quite a bit of humor in such movies as "The Right Stuff" and the "Space Cowboys"
and you probably remember how we made a lot of humor about these tests. There's quite a battery of them.
They've changed a good bit over the years as they've developed more of an inkling of what exactly it is that they're looking for
in an astronaut, and especially as the missions have changed. For instance, the International Space Station mission,
our typical crews now stay up there for six months at a time. So we certainly -- it's important to have someone that's
going to be able to be in that environment for six months or longer. So there are quite a bit,
quite a number of tests. But they're accomplished before astronauts are even selected to be astronauts.