Swimming with spacemen: training for spacewalks at NASA's giant pool
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This is definitely the coolest thing I've seen on Ars (and I've been coming to the site for more than a decade). Probably one of the most interesting articles I've seen ever.
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Wow these feature articles are as beautiful as they are interesting. I hope the creative director's gotten a raise for all of this.
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The NBL training is indeed pretty awesome, but it's only one part of what astronauts work through to be ready on orbit. As Lee noted here, the physics of a pressurized suit in water are pretty different from a pressurized suit in vacuum. So, how can an astronaut train for what a real space suit feels like?
In a giant vacuum chamber of course, with an honest to god airlock door in the side you can walk through. "Chamber B" at JSC is a room-sized vacuum tank that astronauts practice in to get the feel of working with hand tools against 4.3 psi in vacuum. See http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/eng ... index.html
It doesn't get as much press coverage since it's not nearly as photogenic, but from a technical perspective it's every bit as impressive. Takes more than your average lab vacuum pump to remove all the air in a chamber that big - and they can re pressurize in 30 seconds in an emergency. Never had to be used for real but it's tested once a year and by all accounts is absurdly loud.
In a giant vacuum chamber of course, with an honest to god airlock door in the side you can walk through. "Chamber B" at JSC is a room-sized vacuum tank that astronauts practice in to get the feel of working with hand tools against 4.3 psi in vacuum. See http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/eng ... index.html
It doesn't get as much press coverage since it's not nearly as photogenic, but from a technical perspective it's every bit as impressive. Takes more than your average lab vacuum pump to remove all the air in a chamber that big - and they can re pressurize in 30 seconds in an emergency. Never had to be used for real but it's tested once a year and by all accounts is absurdly loud.
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As a freediver all I could think reading this was "I must find a way to dive there."
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Huge fan of the new Article format.
This is what web articles should do. Keep me out of instapaper with good use of media, animations, and modern web technologies.
This is what web articles should do. Keep me out of instapaper with good use of media, animations, and modern web technologies.
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Colm":1td2uehp said:
You can instapaper it to get a column of text, but you'll lose a lot and you really shouldn't do that anyway.
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Wow, fantastic article - both from a content and presentation aspect. Really raising the bar.
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I understand the difference between mass and weight, but I don't understand why they must be treated as separate properties in space. Could somebody explain it for me?
What is moment arm? (Or is it a dictation error and it should be momentum?)
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zpletan":2h48oztd said:
An object in zero-g has no weight (it floats), but its mass is important because of inertia. High-mass objects will still be hard to move, and slamming them together can damage them (or you), or whatever.
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Not a typo--moment arm is used here to refer to torque in a three-dimensional space.
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I like the article with this animated background. ARS really done a excellent job. I'm really lucky to see this excellent article. Hope everybody enjoying this.
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The article is awesome! Really very interesting.
I'm less impressed with the format and the animation.
I'm less impressed with the format and the animation.
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As a swimmer, I was thinking exactly the same thing. Swimming over a mockup of the ISS would be insane (I like how the divers specifically mentioned this with their training). I wonder if the public ever can get in…K1LLTACULAR":21loer6o said:
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What a great article! Definitely several notches above your vanilla news article!
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There are no fingerprints deep underwater
Nothing to tie one to a crime
And if you seek vengeance
All you need are instruments of pain
Nothing to tie one to a crime
And if you seek vengeance
All you need are instruments of pain
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I've visited the NBL twice in the last two years. It is quite an impressive site to look at, much less get the chance to work in. Eventually I might get the opportunity to get to Kennedy and watch an actual launch, but for now I get the opportunity to work with people here in Houston who are working hard in keeping Space Exploration in the forefront of people's minds. (Yes, we're glad to see SpaceX get their Dragon docked, even if they're a competitor to us in some respects.)
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Totally awesome article, I just started reading it but couldn't contain myself. When you do featured articles like this, it really puts you way in front of the pack when it comes to delivering your content for consuming information. It provides a legitimately unique experience.
Well done.
Well done.
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Aurich, is the background image (http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/t ... -image.jpg ) something you created, or that you sourced from someplace else?
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To everyone who loved the layout: thanks, we had a good time with it. When Lee came back from his first trip and started sharing the early photos I knew we had to go all out on it, was just too much of an opportunity to pass up for something fun. Please share it with your friends, it was a ton of work!
If it wasn't your cup of tea: well, don't worry overmuch. We'd like to keep doing fun features like this, but they're not going to become the new normal for our stories or anything. When the right kind of special story comes along we'll run with it, but as always with Ars the content drives everything.
If it wasn't your cup of tea: well, don't worry overmuch. We'd like to keep doing fun features like this, but they're not going to become the new normal for our stories or anything. When the right kind of special story comes along we'll run with it, but as always with Ars the content drives everything.
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It's a photo illustration. So it's an original image, you won't find it anywhere else, but the source photographs of the water etc that form the basis of it are (legally licensed) stock photographs.RockDaMan":1wj6bjs0 said:
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This may possibly be one of the coolest things I have ever read on Ars.
Just....wow.
Just....wow.
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And this sort of stuff is why Ars is one of my top sites.
I enjoyed the article, and the visual design accompanying the article is beautiful and appropriate.
This is not just simple tech blogging but rather real journalism, and is one of the things that sets Ars apart from most other tech and geek sites.
I enjoyed the article, and the visual design accompanying the article is beautiful and appropriate.
This is not just simple tech blogging but rather real journalism, and is one of the things that sets Ars apart from most other tech and geek sites.
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Quite possibly the best on-line article I have ever read, anywhere. The writing, photos, and use of web animation were all excellent. Very impressive.
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So...what kind of camera was used for the photos? Lee mentioned he had a photographer with him, who was that?
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My pics were shot on a T3i (600D) with a Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens and a Speedlite 270 EX II flash. Steve, my photographer, shot with a T2i (550D) and used several lenses and flashes, but the majority of his pics were taken with a Tamron AF 17-50mm F/2.8 XR Di-II and a Speedlite 430 EX II (with a sto-fen diffuser).
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There was a similar tank at Marshall Spaceflight Center...from 1969 to 1997. 40ft deep, 75 diameter. I saw it during a tour when I was a child
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_Buoyancy_Simulator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_Buoyancy_Simulator
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Awesome article! Read from start to finish, which took awhile, but so worth it! Thanks for this!
Many incredible things that came out of this and I agree the BRT is the coolest tool of them all!
6 million gallons of water and they can turn it over in less than a day! Anyone who owns a pool will appreciate the gravity of this (pun intended).
Many incredible things that came out of this and I agree the BRT is the coolest tool of them all!
6 million gallons of water and they can turn it over in less than a day! Anyone who owns a pool will appreciate the gravity of this (pun intended).
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Awesome article -- thanks!
That first image, of the NBL pool is now my desktop wallpaper.
That first image, of the NBL pool is now my desktop wallpaper.
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Fascinating read! Big thumbs up on the content and photos.
That said, I have to agree with some of the comments regarding format: while it's refreshing, it also looks very out of touch with the Ars layout. After a while, the wavy water paragraph breaks are distracting, as are some of the animations. The photos taking up the whole width of the content column look kind of strange (no border to separate them from the background). I don't hate it, but I don't love it either.
That said, I have to agree with some of the comments regarding format: while it's refreshing, it also looks very out of touch with the Ars layout. After a while, the wavy water paragraph breaks are distracting, as are some of the animations. The photos taking up the whole width of the content column look kind of strange (no border to separate them from the background). I don't hate it, but I don't love it either.
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Only on page 2, but had to pause to comment on how fantastic this article is. Love the photos, the layout, and the content. Bravo!
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