Do the astronauts only do research or repair work inside there spaceship or they also..?

Question

or they also have to do some maneuvers to control the flight of there ship. I think that whole the space flight is controlled from the base station at NASA. The astronauts just keep sitting inside spaceship keeping there fingers crossed. Are there any sort of lever or switches inside their rockets which can direct their motion I mean as they do in the fiction movies??

please also add-up web links if possible.
regards

Answer 1

Actually, most of a spaceships's control is with the astronauts. Consider Apollo 8, where astronauts had to fly to the moon--they were very far away from the Earth and much of the mission was in their hands.

However, you're right -- mission control has a ton of power. They make the calculations, and guide the rocket to the desitnation. They also have the power to abort a mission.

So really, it's a balance of control.

Answer 2

The space shuttle is closely monitored and controlled from the ground and on board navigation systems. However astronauts have the training and ability to manually take over the controls at any time if the situation arises. Additionally, astronauts are never just sitting around up there in the shuttle. They are constantly working on experiments, maintenance, repair, housekeeping, and monitoring their shuttle.

Answer 3

Hi. The Shuttle has quite a bit of control with the OMS engines and small thrusters. These can be activated manually.