NASA Astronaut Corps Center in Houston, although members may be assigned to other locations based on mission requirements, e.g. Soyuz training at Star City, Russia. The Chief of the Astronaut Office is the most senior leadership position for active astronauts in the Corps. The Chief Astronaut serves as head of the Corps and is the principal adviser to the NASA Administrator on astronaut training and operations. The first Chief Astronaut was Deke Slayton, appointed in 1962. The current Chief Astronaut is Patrick Forrester. Salaries for newly hired civilian astronauts are based on the federal government's General Schedule pay scale for grades GS-11 through
Astronaut training the ISS. The Tsukuba Space Center also includes medical facilities for assessing suitability of candidates, an isolation chamber for simulating some of the mental and emotional stressors of long duration spaceflight, and a hypobaric chamber for training in hull breach or Life Support System failure scenarios resulting in a reduction or loss of air pressure. Although official detail of the selection process for the Shenzhou program is not available, what is known is that candidates are chosen by the Chinese National Space Administration from the Chinese air force and must be between 25 and 30 years of age, with a