The First Gymnastronauts:
“Wilbur Wright was 17 when his family moved to Dayton, Ohio. He was an accomplished gymnast.”
Learn more about the Wright Brothers & the origin of manned flight here.
"We often speak of our Air Force as our springboard to outer space. And it is not only because in the Air Force we learned to fly—something which is so very important in a space flight. Service in the Air Force made us strong both physically and mo-rally. All of us, cosmonauts, took up sports and PT seriously when we served in the Air Force. I know that Yuri Gagarin was fond of ice hockey. He liked to play goalkeeper. Gherman Titov [2nd person to orbit] was a gymnastics enthusiast […] sports became a fixture in the life of the cosmonauts."
- Colonel Valeri Bykovsky, a Soviet cosmonaut, page 26-27 of Sportsmen of the Soviet Army Vyacheslav Gavrilin, © Novosti, Press Agency Publishing House 1973
Tim Peake
Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong
Sunita Williams & Double Leg Circles
While Double Leg Circles (such s performed by Sunita Williams) might not need a dedicated facility, the motorbar with a rebounding wall will.
“Results indicate that the magnitude of the biomechanical stimuli is greater in trampoline jumping than in running, which finding could be of use in the design of procedures to avert deconditioning in persons exposed to weightlessness.” Learn more from NASA’s research here.
If NASA awards us a grant, we could call the module the GymNASAT?
And then, Trampolines on the Moon?