Before setting foot on the moon, its future astronauts NASA they will be asked to pass (into) the water.

Since 1992, hundreds of astronauts have been trained at the famed Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) near NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

All ISS crew members undergoing training spend many hours in a huge indoor pool, where they gradually become accustomed to performing tasks at arm’s length of trained divers.

NASA is keen to send astronauts to the moon, and part of the underwater facility is being rebuilt to prepare for the new mission.

Near the ISS crew training section, a “lunar world” is created by adding sand and boulders (natural and artificial) to the bottom of the pool. Prototypes of space suits and lunar vehicles are dropped and tested in water.

Even unusual (for earthlings) lunar conditions are being simulated underwater as V2X experiments with the light that will bathe NASA astronauts at the lunar south pole in 2025 when Artemis 3 lands on the moon.

As NASA expands the Artemis program to the Moon, the agency expects companies to become interested in deals relatively quickly. Already the program (CLPS) provides for the shipment of goods and vehicles from this year.

V2X expects demand to rise rapidly and wants to prepare an underwater lunar simulation for anyone who needs to prepare for a spacewalk in a highly controlled environment.

“Everyone needs to be absolutely and constantly focused on safety,” V2X program manager Clay Tomlinson told Space.com.

“This is something very, very important (….), if you think about astronauts in training, we provide them with air. We provide them with water.”

There are other useful tests on the surface of the pool: V2X participated in the simulated moon landing of the Artemis 1 mission after years of practice. Mission 2022 not only sent an unmanned Orion spacecraft around the moon for the first time, but also landed flawlessly thanks to years of training and preparation.

Source: space.com