DIVE SLATE
14
|
FALL 2012
N
eutral buoyancy isn’t just
a good skill — it’s one of
the great joys of diving.
Where else on earth
besides underwater can you thumb
your nose at gravity? Has anyone in the
history of scuba diving not imagined at
least once he was flying like Superman
or floating in space like an astronaut?
If you’re like me and you do that sort
of thing all the time, don’t worry; real
astronauts do it, too.
NASA has been conducting training
missions at the Aquarius Reef Base
underwater habitat off Key Largo,
Fla., since 2001 in a series of projects
called NASA Extreme Environment
Mission Operations (NEEMO). Taking
advantage of the similarities between
working 60 feet below the surface for a
week from a tiny research habitat and
working in space for a week from a tiny
spacecraft, NASA has staged as many
as three projects a year from Aquarius,
each one designed to provide specific
tests and training for future space
flights. NEEMO 16, which looked about
15
years into the future at the possible
exploration of asteroids in orbit around
the sun, was completed this past June.
I was invited to photograph the
astronauts at work outside Aquarius, and
despite the large crowd at the site, it was
a thrill. The exercise had the precisely
controlled frenzy of a Hollywood
blockbuster being filmed underwater:
elaborate sets, divers in high-tech gear,
submersibles, floodlights and miles of
cable and hose. Two team members,
Kimiya Yui and Steven Squyres,
were intently carrying out a planned
excursion from “Spacecraft Aquarius”
to specially constructed “asteroids” on
the sandy seafloor adjacent to the reef.
Two DeepWorker 2000 submersibles
hovered back and forth, standing in as
single-person space-exploration vehicles.
Special booms attached to the subs
allowed the astronauts to clip into their
boots like skiers. An army of support
divers filtered up and down from the
surface ships, using their allotted bottom
time to guide umbilical hoses, position
gear, video the proceedings and help
keep everyone safe.
Being careful not to interrupt,
I photographed the astronauts as
they used the subs to maneuver
themselves to a spot on the “asteroid”
and attempted to collect samples.
Even clipped securely to the sub, the
difficulty of the task was apparent.
Both Yui and Squyres remained
completely focused on the job at hand,
never becoming distracted by me or by
the dozens of support personnel.
I was impressed by the realism of the
whole scene. Later, at NASA’s Mobile
Mission Control Center in Key Largo,
I asked Mike Gernhardt, principal
investigator for NEEMO 16 and a
participant in NEEMO 1 and NEEMO 8,
if the underwater experience really
translated to space. He smiled and
assured me it did —with “high fidelity.”
A veteran astronaut with four spacewalks
under his belt, Gernhardt speaks from
experience. He explained that some of
NASA Extreme
Environment Mission Operations
Astronaut training in inner space
1 4
/
N A S A E x t r e m e E N V I R O N M E N T
M I S S I O N O P E R A T I O N S
1 6
/
l i t t l e o r p h a n m a n a t e e
1 8
/
P I O N E e r s O F D I V E S A F E T Y
2 0
/ 2 5
T H a n n i v e r s a r y O F T H E d u a n e
2 2
/
d a n m e m b e r p r o f i l e
2 6
/
d a n c a l e n d a r o f e v e n t s
2 6
/
d a n e d u c a t i o n : T H E N A N D N O W
2 7
/
o n l i n e v i d e o l e c t u r e
NEEMO 16 Participants
•
Dottie Metcalf-Lindenberger
,
NASA (NEEMO mission commander)
•
Kimiya Yui
,
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
•
Tim Peake
,
European Space Agency
•
Steven Squyres
,
Ph.D., professor of astronomy, Cornell University
BILL HARRIGAN