When you’re an astronaut about to set foot on a new world, you don’t want an amateur at the helm back at Mission Control on Earth.

That’s why the role of CAPCOM is so crucial to any space journey.

CAPCOM is short for Capsule Communicator, the person at NASA who is the liaison between the astronauts in their “capsule” and Mission Control. This individual is the single voice the crew members on the spacecraft hear when communicating with Earth, with all information being filtered through them.

The CAPCOM is listening to all the data about the mission from every console at Mission Control. This person hears what the Flight Director wants the crew to know, and turns it into words the crew will understand. They’re also the crew’s trusted agent on the ground, fighting battles and arguing in their stead.

The CAPCOM is essential to the success of each mission.

Understandably, this job isn’t given to just anyone.

Right from the start of the U.S. space program, it was recognized that the astronauts would need someone they could trust to be their relay back on Earth. Someone who knew what they were going through, because they’d gone through the same experience.

So the role of CAPCOM has traditionally been given almost exclusively to former astronauts.

Although there are numerous highly trained and very talented people at Mission Control who could assume the job of CAPCOM, NASA felt that someone who had been an astronaut themselves would be best able to understand what’s going on in the spacecraft and to pass information along in the clearest way.

After all, no one but an astronaut knows what it’s like to blast off in a rocket and “let slip the surly bonds of Earth.” No one but a fellow space traveller knows the vulnerable feeling of floating in the vast blackness of space, hundreds or even thousands of miles from your home planet.

Even though you and I may not be launching into space anytime soon, we still need a CAPCOM of our own.