A Colby Book about Astronauts in Training: How Our Astronauts Prepare for Space Exploration (1969)
In 1969, American nonfiction children's writer Carrol Burleigh Colby wrote a children's book on how young American men were trained to become astronauts. The book features many pictures of the men in their learning environments and the assorted items they carried for space travel. It was published by Coward-McCann in New York and is rated at ages eight and higher. It is evident that the book may have belonged to a child at one point. On page three, there are paragraphs underlined in red crayon or color pencil. The child may have used this book for educational purposes.
C. B. Colby was born September 7, 1904, in Claremont, New Hampshire. In September1922, he attended the School of Practical Art in Boston, Massachusetts, where he studied to be a commercial illustrator and cartoonist. Colby completed that school's three-year course of study and received a certificate of completion in June 1925. In the summer, he traveled by steam ship to Puerto Rico to begin his career as a commercial artist. Later, when he exhausted his savings, Colby joined the U. S. Customs Service as a Coast Guard seaman to combat rumrunners during the Prohibition era. He returned to the United States in 1927 taking on many jobs as a staff artist in the newspapers. In 1929, Colby began to draw pen and ink illustrations for stories in pulp magazines, such as Air Stories, Zeppelin Stories, Wings, and Flying Aces. He also painted several covers for Zeppelin Stories and Flying Aces. In 1950, he began to write and illustrate books for juvenile readers. His titles include Wild Deer, Wildlife In Our National Parks, First Book of Animal Signs, First Fish, Ships Of Commerce, Cliff Dwellings, The Strategic Air Command, Today's Camping, and From Muskets to M-14s. Colby also wrote and illustrated a daily newspaper feature called "Adventure Today," with stories about haunted houses, buried treasure, antique swords and flintlocks. On October 31, 1977, C. B. Colby died at the age of seventy-three in Briarcliff Manor, New York.
This book was published when the Space Race was a topic of global discussion. Countries, such as the United States, Russia, and China, were competing to advance the farthest in space exploration, which led to many scientific and technological inventions. In C. B. Colby's book, he teaches readers how men were selected and trained in a variety of ways to become astronauts. Young men were selected based on several strict requirements. When selecting eligible participants, men in professions such as test pilot, engineer, physicist, geologist, chemist, and medical doctor were highly preferred. These men had to have specific skills like bilingualism and multi-tasking capabilities in stressful situations. Men were not selected if they had traits, behaviors, or political beliefs that could hinder their training or public reputation. Personality and leadership styles were important in the selection process because it helped scientists understand who was equipped for short- or long-duration space missions. It also helped identify who was emotionally stable enough for periods of isolation and confinement.
Once the young men were selected, they would begin their training to becoming astronauts. The program introduced the men to different areas in space flight that they were required to master. In some areas, the men trained in simulations to get an idea of what will happen during the flight. For example, while training to endure G-Forces, the trainees ride inside of a gondola and are spun around at high speeds. Scientists can speak to the men inside through a computer and tell them how to stiffen their bodies against the G-Forces. Another simulation is during Egress training, where the men learn how they would emerge from their spacecraft when they land in the ocean. They practiced this inside a giant water tank at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas, with divers and photographers to record their progress. These simulations were necessary because the spacecraft the astronauts operated were under development.
In addition, the trainees were taught about zero gravity. They would fly inside a KC-135 jet and reach a high-speed parabolic curve allowing them to float freely inside the jet. Once they were floating, they were taught how to use and move objects at low gravity. On the ground, the young men were taught survival techniques in the event they landed in a desert or forest and could not contact mission control. They were taught what plants and animals were edible, how to create weapons based on their environment, how to produce water, and how to protect themselves during the day and night.
Cited Work
Collins, Daniel L. (2003) "Psychological Issues Relevant to Astronaut Selection for Long-Duration Space Flight: A Review of the Literature," Journal of Human Performance in Extreme Environments: Vol. 7: Iss. 1, Article 1.
DOI: 10.7771/2327-2937.1021
D'Alessandro, Julia (2023). "The Space Race between the 1960s and 1970s." Canadian Journal of Undergraduate Research: Space Race, Vol. 8, No. 1.
Melvin Calvin, Oleg Georgievich Gazenko, United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Akademii︠a︡ nauk SSSR. Foundations of Space Biology and Medicine: Space medicine and biotechnology, Chapter 16 Training of Cosmonauts and Astronauts. Scientific and Technical Information Office, National Aeronautics Space Administration, 1975, pg 438-442.
Saunders, David. C. B. Colby. Field Guide to Wild American Pulp Artists, 2016, Catalog (pulpartists.com), Accessed 20 Sept. 2024.
Steimle, H., Norberg, C. (2013). Astronaut selection and training. In: Norberg, C. (eds) Human Spaceflight and Exploration. Springer Praxis Books. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pg 256. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23725-6_7
Text by Jocelyn Revoldt, Sophomore, History(major) and Library and Information Science (minor).
**Items of the Month featured in 2024-2006 will be the work of Southern Miss students who took HON 303, a seminar held in Fall 2024 focusing on archives and special collections.