Flood fight offers glimpse of how people cope under life-threatening pressure
“It’s gonna suck – prepare for the suck.”
Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen gave those last words of advice to journalists before they entered a flood tank at a Canadian Forces training facility near Halifax.
The flood simulation was one small peek for reporters into the testing of the 32 candidates hoping to become Canada’s next astronauts.
For this stress test, the Canadian Space Agency uses the Kootenay Damage Control Training Facility near Halifax. As well as the flood simulator, the facility also has a smoke maze, rooms for firefighting training, even a helicopter crash fire training site.
The flood simulator is a 30foot by 20-foot room outfitted like the inside of a navy ship.
Exercise control staff can fill the room with water; send water squirting through various breaches in the walls and cause pipes to burst unexpectedly. The water comes straight from the Atlantic Ocean.
“The water has been chilling for us all winter. I’ve done this
a few times, I know what it’s about and it’s hard to get excited about going into the flood tank,” said Hansen.
The first time the 41-year-old fighter pilot went in the flood tank was in 2008 when he was a candidate hoping to be selected to become an astronaut.
“It was the longest day of my life. You’re exhausted.”
It was the final scenario of the day. He had just finished the fire exercise, a high intensity work-
out in full firefighting gear.
“I have never been so hot. I wasn’t sure I was going to remain conscious. And then I stepped into that water and the first five minutes it felt like bathwater. It didn’t take long though and I was cold, very cold.”
For the journalists, the water was only calf high. For the candidates, it streams in so fast that, by the end of their scenario, they are chest deep in water.
Evaluators are watching to see how well people are working together and if they are “getting stuff done”– closing the leaks in this case with various wedges, hammers and cloth wraps.
Hansen says the goal of this day-long test, done in teams of four candidates, is to see how they perform under stress.
“We really want to know what these people are like when they are not having fun anymore.
“Imagine you’re in a really tough situation on the space station and you’re not 100 per cent sure if you’re winning, if you’re going to lose your life or lose the space station, and we want to know that the people we’re sending to space will be working to their very last breath trying to save the lives of their crew members and also the space station.”