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NASA Space Habitat Research Goes Undersea
PSandusky writes "NASA is preparing to make use of Aquarius, the underwater laboratory off Key Largo, for an extended period of time to research the effects of isolation in habitats situated in extreme environments. Planned areas of research include extravehicular activity logistics and crew health and performance. According to NASA's factsheet (PDF), the mission will include some communication with schools and social media sites. "
There's a whole ocean of oil down there!
Soon.
This is news? I thought NASA has been doing underwater habitat isolation studies for years.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
"If you're looking for me, you'd better check under the sea, because that is where you'll find me: underneath the Sea - lab... underneath the water. Sealab, at the bottom of the sea."
It has been DONE.
Tektite I, in 1969, put four men in a habitat, and kept them there, for over 58 days. That was a record at the time. They were working during the dive, doing excursions. During Tektite II, multiple 10-20 day missions were carried out. NASA was involved in those.
A significant portion of the work in the Tektite projects was looking at human factors, specifically including psychology. Dr. Bob Helmreich of UT Austin was involved. (He was also the UT SCUBA club faculty sponsor for several years.)
Aquarius is 62' down. My recollection was that Tektite was at 45', that being the deepest you can use air for long-term saturation without risking whole-body oxygen toxicity issues.
There is NOTHING being done here that couldn't be done on dry land. ESA and the Russians are doing a similar project, all indoors in a big warehouse. Much of what they want to learn, about isolation psychology, they SHOULD be learning from the International Space Station, since they have crews spending much longer periods aboard ISS.
I don't like to put NASA down, but THIS project is a waste of time and money.
NASA is going to make a giant underwater sports facility. So huge, it could host 20,000 leagues under the sea.
Putting people in an environment that consists of a low mistake tolerance adds different pressures to the test.
ON land and something goes wrong, then you are likely to survive, and the people in the test know this.
Put it underwater, then they know if something goes wrong they are probably going to die.
Because it's on earth, you can do this test longer then you can on the ISS.
You don't have to worry about the issues that arise from weightlessness.
This project tis needed to help understand the effect of long term space travel.
FYI they do collect day on the effects of being in the ISS.
I hope they also use the team member to start testing way t deal with other world liquid water environments.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Wasn't this an Asimov short story?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterclap
They should just go study these folks. It's definitely and isolated, extreme environment.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
This has clearly been done.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/21/AR2009092103723.html
A waste of precious NASA bucks better spent on robots (and I mean robots to help the manned program).
And the "isolation" aspect is just bunk -- resource more for deep space transmission of e-mail and skype and the astronauts will be begging to be left alone.
This has already been done. Have you people never heard of Atlantis?
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
They should be communicating with schools of FISH $
This was an Asimov short story called Waterclap. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterclap
... because the word is "utter" not "otter". It's 37 fucking characters counting spaces. Is that too much for you to proofread? Can't you jackasses get anything right?
of the age of Aquarius!
Hey... do you think there's any way that NASA could convert a decommissioned shuttle and sell it to BP?
Dear sir,
Your post is shit. Stop it.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Put this deep sea station inmthe Gulf of Mexico, say near a particular disaster...
And help that pitiful corporation fix the mess!
Maybe they can finally definitively answer the questions I know are on everyone's mind here:
Who really lives in a pineapple under the sea?
Can they in fact all live in a yellow submarine?
Is there really an octopus's garden in the shade, and would he let them in, and know where they've been?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
But then again, they've been sinking a lot lately.
Anyplace really would be fine. Lagrange points, the moon, an asteroid I don't give a shit anymore. Pick a destination and let's hit the road. NASA has been like a WOW gamer shut-in for the last few years. Sure they've made a lot of friends, got some real good screen shots, and some phat loot, but they haven't done much of anything else in the really real world.
Send astronauts, robots(not just 1 or 2 little ones, try 100's), or go colonial and send religious fanatics, criminals, etc. Let's get going!
All they need to do is send someone to Mars, all alone and with a few HD cameras. Have him send his footage back to be edited by the same folks who make Survivor Man, and Voila, instant Mars reality TV. Even if the more scientific community doesn't agree, it would definitely get more attention by people who currently don't follow anything space related. Probably creating a better atmosphere for commercial opportunity, too. Hell, I'd watch it.