Doses Astronaut\Cosmonaut swear?

[Pawelk198604]

I heard that american astronaut swearing a lot.

Why never heard Gagarin or Neil Armstrong swearing during mission.

Would not it be more fun if the first words on the moon sounded like this:)

[The Jedi Master]

Three words:

Live. National. Television.

[Nibb31]

Nowadays, I'm not sure, but during Apollo, US astronauts were trained to use "soft" swear words because their transmissions had to be kept "family-friendly". This made them sometimes sound like an old-fashioned kids show when they used words like "gosh" and "golly", which were pretty dated, even in the 60's.

I don't know about the Russian space program, but I don't think cosmonaut transmissions were made public, so it might not have been much of a problem.

[Temstar]

They do swear. Alan Shepard's lasts words (to himself) before his Mercury-Redstone rocket blasted off was "don't f*** up".

And then there was the Soyuz T-10-1 incident where:

Years later, in an interview with the American History Channel regarding the flight, Titov claimed that the crew's first action after the escape rocket fired was to deactivate the spacecraft's cockpit voice recorder because, as he put it, "We were swearing"

[NASAFanboy]

I heard that american astronaut swearing a lot.

Why never heard Gagarin or Neil Armstrong swearing during mission.

Would not it be more fun if the first words on the moon sounded like this:)

When your in space, you are ambassador to humankind. You do not want to scream vulgar things at Mission Control, or aliens will hear you and exterminate earth.

Otherwise, when your in space, you are ambassador to humanity. Do not swear.

[Nikolai]

Gene Cernan was reprimanded for swearing on Apollo 10. And while he was careful on the air, my personal favorite astronaut, Pete Conrad, was said to have sworn like a sailor in private life. (Which, considering he was Navy, is probably appropriate.)

[Scotius]

Every guy working with any technology, starting with a hammer and a nail will tell you that said technology needs proper conservation, bit of finesse, and a f***ton of swear words to work properly. And believe me, as an qualified operator of three different machines meant for wood processing i do know what i'm talking about. Rocket? Whoa, when something decides to act up, air inside the capsule will be sizzling with unprintables.

[DerekL1963]

Nowadays, I'm not sure, but during Apollo, US astronauts were trained to use "soft" swear words because their transmissions had to be kept "family-friendly". This made them sometimes sound like an old-fashioned kids show when they used words like "gosh" and "golly", which were pretty dated, even in the 60's.

That depends on where/when you grew up. We were still using "gosh" in high school in the late 70's... (Winston-Salem NC, NFSH Class of '81.) The Apollo astronauts largely grew up in the 30's and 40's.

According to Micheal Collins (in Carrying the Fire), at least one Apollo astronaut had to be trained to hum rather than swear... Rumor has it this was John Young.

[Kryten]

As for Cosmonauts, when soyuz T-10-a blew up on the pad (LAS saved the capsule), the first thing the crew did was turn off the voice recorder because they were swearing so much.

[karolus10]

In this profession, swearing is mostly smaller issue than possible cause of it.

[NovaSilisko]

It happened a lot, but usually when the astronauts weren't in direct contact with the ground (or at least thought they werent, John Young's "farting on the moon" incident, as an example) Also, there are transcripts of all Shuttle and Apollo missions, based on recorders in the spacecraft (I think?), and there is a LOT of weird stuff on there, as well as... colorful language. I'll have to dig them up again sometime and post some of the stranger tidbits.

As for cosmonauts, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_T-10-1

Years later, in an interview with the American History Channel regarding the flight, Titov claimed that the crew's first action after the escape rocket fired was to deactivate the spacecraft's cockpit voice recorder because, as he put it, "We were swearing".

Edited May 16, 2013 by NovaSilisko

[K^2]

I don't know about the Russian space program, but I don't think cosmonaut transmissions were made public, so it might not have been much of a problem.

after the fact. Naturally, that would let them filter what does and does not become public, but to merely remark "lets roll" during the liftoff of the first human launch must have taken some restraint. And there are no do-overs there. So I'm guessing, the cosmonauts were also instructed to keep language clean in event that party does decide to make the recordings public for PR purposes.

[NovaSilisko]

Here are a couple of the strange happenings on the Apollo missions

Apollo 10:

---

Apollo 11:

Apollo 16:

Source http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/mission_trans/apollo11.htm

There's a "select a mission" thingy at the bottom, and you can grab PDF transcripts of all pre-shuttle missions. As you may expect, there can be some sailor speak in there, so keep that in mind.

[Drunkrobot]

You ready for your underwear?- Commander Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11