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NASA Space Habitat Research Goes Undersea

Posted by samzenpus on from the over-and-under dept.

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. "

8 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. This is news??? by camperdave · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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!
    1. Re:This is news??? by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And why go underwater? Facebook security [techcrunch.com] conventions should get you the requisite amount of isolation to practice for deep space travel!

      Simple, because it's actually a hostile environment if you're not careful, and because for any space-suit training, it's the closest thing to low gravity we can simulate.

      When you're trying to seriously evaluate how you would handle an extreme environment, you don't just run around playing make-believe.

      Air locks and the associated protocols are important both under water and in space.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  2. This is RIDICULOUS! by john.r.strohm · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  3. Your awfully short sighted. by geekoid · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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 /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    1. Re:Your awfully short sighted. by criptic08 · · Score: 5, Informative

      As a precision to the parent's correct post, Warehouse isolation studies are referred to as simulations while these underwater tests are analogs. Analogs include unreproducible stresses found in real conditions (underwater and polar stations mainly) unlike simulations. The distinction is crucial when studying isolation psychology and psychiatry.

    2. Re:Your awfully short sighted. by Wingnut5 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, the US Navy has been doing this more or less since 1954 with the launching of the USS Nautilus ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nautilus_(SSN-571)) Round the world submerged with the USS Triton (SSRN/SSN-586), the first vessel to execute a submerged circumnavigation of the Earth (Operation Sandblast) in early 1960. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Triton_%28SSRN-586%29) And with many other boats and submariners. Meets all the requirements that nasa is more or less looking for : adventurer, boredom, excitement, a little terror at times. Nothing like taking a boat out after a shipyard overhaul and taking it down to its test depth while listening to the hull compress with the pressure. Yep, a lot of data there

  4. Life imitating art.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wasn't this an Asimov short story?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterclap

  5. Can't believe NASA is sinking money into this... by tehIvyn · · Score: 2, Funny

    But then again, they've been sinking a lot lately.