NASA sends astronauts underwater before flying into open space

NASA may have stopped supporting the shuttle, but she still has a desire to send astronauts much farther into space than ever before.

Of course, these journeys are far from being realized, but on Monday the astronauts will go underwater to conduct a simulation with which scientists can learn how to explore a new direction: a near-earth asteroid.
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It will be the 16th NEEMO expedition - NASA Extreme Enviroment Mission Operations - under the control of astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger. She was on one of the last shuttle missions and even helped prepare Atlantis for her last flight.

“It was a very memorable time,” says Metcalf-Lindenburger, an astronaut who is very keen to return to space again. But now, she commands a team of four people who wear scuba gear instead of a spacesuit. Metcalfe says it's time to move on.

“As elsewhere in life, for example, my daughter had to finish kindergarten first, and then go to school. We have to finish old things and start new ones, just like in space programs, ”says Metclaf-Lindenburger.

Her team will spend 2 weeks working under water, in an environment that is closest to the zero gravity of the asteroid.

Their base will be in an underwater laboratory called Aquarius. The size of the station is the size of a school bus, and it is located at a depth of 18 meters below the surface, a few miles from the shores of Key Largo, Florida.

Metklafe-Lindenburger says that swimming underwater is very much like swimming in deep space.

“Water is a great way to free your body and try other movement options. Just because we are stuck here on Earth, it’s fun to swim underwater, roll around, just like in space, ”she says.

How to collect stones in space

Astronomer Steve Squires from Cornell University goes to Aquarius a second time. His last mission, NEEMO, was overtaken by a hurricane.

He is very excited that he may get another chance to find out what equipment can help people to explore the asteroid once. Last time, Steve and his comrades wore jetpacks and flew with them underwater.

“They were very comfortable to move around.” You saw a rock at 30 meters and easily jumped over it, ”he says.

But they were terrible if you needed to stop for a while, for example, to take asteroid samples.

“If you need to do something so simple, like knocking a rock with a hammer, you just fly into outer space, so we had to develop completely new things to perform operations on the surface of the asteroid,” says Steve Skvares.

This time, they were going to find out if mini-submarines could help them hover in one place.
“Imagine this small submarine with a two-meter crossbar sticking out in front and an astronaut hanging on it as a decoration,” says Steve.
NASA hopes to begin sending astronauts with equipment to asteroids after 2025.

What is so interesting about asteroids?

You may ask why someone needed an asteroid, but Steve Skvaers says there are many reasons for this.

Some asteroids are made up of such things as metals that can be mined on Earth. Steve says that we have to learn all that is possible about asteroids in order to understand the origin of the solar system and protect ourselves.

“Asteroids are a threat. They have come across land before, ”he explains. “Asteroids caused mass extinctions. A small asteroid destroyed all dinosaurs 65 million years ago. We will suffer the same fate if we, as a species, cannot prevent it. ”

Just sending a robot to an asteroid is not enough, says Steve. Then there is a very long speech about what difficulties would arise if a robot were sent. Steve is the principal investigator of the Mars Rover project.

“At the moment, what the most advanced robot can do on Mars in a day, anyone under the same conditions would have done it in 30 seconds,” says Steve.

Metklaf-Lindenburger predicts that as soon as NASA learns how to send people to asteroids, people will want to go there.

“People are researchers by nature,” she says. "We are making discoveries from a very very long time." When NASA finally sends people far into space, she hopes to be one of them.

ps article is translated in gratitude to Habr's support for unlocking.