Slashdot Mirror
NASA's Underwater Training Facility
An anonymous reader writes "The NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations project (NEEMO) sends groups of NASA employees and contractors to live in the Aquarius underwater laboratory for up to three weeks to study human survival in preparation for future space exploration. NASA has used it since 2001 for a number of missions, usually lasting 10 to 14 days, with research conducted by astronauts and others NASA employees."
See, there was this one guy in a classic fiction book called Captain Nemo, and he lived underwater too!
NEEMO, Nemo, it's almost the same!
What was that done on a 386? looks like a cut scene from a playstation 1 game
What a waste of my tax dollars - leave this to private industry and give me a tax break :(
Because if they do, we might all be subject to Operation Finding NEEMO
Playing in the water instead of developing technology needed to make space life sustainable. NASA should be more like the LHC and less like a playground.
the final frontier!
FCKGW 09F9 42
I'd like to see a lab like this support operations in deepwater commercial activities like exploration and drilling. When BP's Macondo well exploded on the Gulf floor last year, we all learned suddenly that BP and the oil industry was unprepared for what is an obvious risk in that business. NASA's research should give us much better remote vehicles for monitoring and taking control of undersea operations. Establish normal monitoring to reduce risk and stop catastrophes as they barely get started. Supply technology, techniques and qualified staff during a breakdown. And deliver forensics after a breakdown to assign liability and strategies for recovery.
The $4B+ the Federal government gifts the 5 biggest petrocorps each year would be better spent improving NASA's undersea research to benefit that industry and protect it all from its damages. And in fact that $4B+ should be paid for by the industry, using a small fraction of its current profits (and an even tinier fraction of its gross revenues). $4-8B spent on NASA's underwater research would give us the skills we need to colonize and exploit the seas sustainably, instead of the nearly blind, haphazard and disastrous way we're doing it now.
The oil corps have proven over and again they're never going to do disaster preparedness and mitigation on their own. NASA is as usual spending public money in one of the best investments of all time. The match in NASA filling that vacuum is compelling.
--
make install -not war
I read the title as the "Underwear Training Facility". Damn, NASA sure are thorough in their training.
Nothing holds back space exploration and space science more than the astronauts and astronaut culture. Umanned is the way of the foreseeable future.
Send machines, not people.
Voyager and the Third Age of Discovery
I know you'll just automaticcaly mod this down and not even listen (and THINK) about what the man has to say. But on the off chance one or two people are still capable of critical reasoning when pictures of Space Nuttery are around, the link is there.
This is just my opinion, but I think NASA is taking the wrong approach on its continued focus on the use/training of astronauts. Humans are not designed for working in space, and can only adapt for short periods of time. Robots do not have any of those limitations, but currently lack the intelligence and capabilities to do the job. Google, iRobot, and others are trying to fill the gap (robot driving, cleaning robots, etc), but the longterm payoff/risks make this process very slow/limited in the private sector. If DARPA/NASA was to suspend their astronaut programs, and instead set a goal of making robots the replacements for astronauts I think the long term payoff for society as a whole would be better off. In time, however, maybe humans can go places after the robots have proven the technologies, built and space/moon/mars outposts, etc..
Build a mock space station put it in a building that will fit it then suck all the air out of the container building. Then see if they open the door. It would probable be a lot cheaper. Or they could use the container building to sequester carbon either way can't open the door and it would help offset are the carbon NASA creates.
goatse (or similar) warning
I have two better questions.
I know when Planet-X causes the solar sun to convulse sporatic coronal-mass ejections at planet Earth for many unknown years, there will be government employees 10's of miles underground and perhaps as deep as the crust for their intention to insulate themselves from the burning canopy of tillable soil above them.
I distinctly remember that the quality of the atmosphere durring periods of habitation of the "dinosaurs" was a rich improvement favoring oxygen; how will the ocean evaporating into the atmosphere enrich this planet as it was allegedly millions of years ago, and how does the sun's coronal-mass ejections effect NASA's ability to insulate theirselves on the sea floor?
Brought to you by the Redundancy Department of Redundancy.
Billionsss and Billionsss of dollerths.
Compu-ta.. set course for Zimbabwe station in sector 4.
Sci-fi is a disease that should be wiped out.
In an era where all space science is done by unmanned probes and robots, I think it says a lot that we are willing to preserve our heritage in manned space flight. These selfless men and women in their period costumes, devote their careers to re-enacting history, so that we can enjoy the spectacle. Very much like the royal family in the UK. I'm so happy that the US taxpayers are willing to spend billions of dollars each year to keep this history alive. It is almost as good as civil war re-enactments!
Does it always have Aerosmith music playing in the background?
"NASA's Underwear Training Facility?"
need more coffee.....
hey, it would explain that whacko astronut chick's diaper wearing death drive a few years back....