Underwater spacewalks recreate the 'moon' in a giant NASA pool (photos)

[Admin]

NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory has trained spacewalking astronauts in a pool for 30 years. Now a part of the facility is changing to address a forecast demand for moon missions.

Underwater spacewalks recreate the 'moon' in a giant NASA pool (photos) : Read more

 

[Joe Brooks]

This article sounds like the author is totally unaware that NASA had built and used a separate facility to train astronauts for EVAs underwater, called the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator, from 1968 to 1997. Underwater training for EVAs is not new and, contrary to what the article says, was available to the Apollo astronauts. I believe the first use of underwater training for EVA was done by Buzz Aldrin for hi EVA on Gemini 12.