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NASA astronauts head underwater to simulate Mars missions
Once a year, NASA's astronauts make a big change -- trading their vocation of conducting scientific experiments in space for one of underwater research. For the next two and a half weeks, an international team of 'Aquanauts' will be living on the ocean floor at NASA's Aquarius habitat off of the coast of Florida. As always, the NEEMO (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations) expedition will serve as a testing ground for new equipment. This year, it's also giving the team a taste of what it would be like to live on Mars.
NASA takes to the sea to test new space tools
What's the best way to simulate the conditions of outer space here on Earth? Go to the bottom of the ocean, of course. NASA has actually been sending astronauts to an underwater habitat for years under the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) program, and the 20th expedition is slated to begin soon. On July 20th, a team of NASA, ESA (Europe) and JAXA (Japan) astronauts will start testing new tools and techniques for future spacewalks to get them used to different surfaces and gravity levels on asteroids, the moon and Mars.
