Monthly Archives: June 2012

Incredible special effects

Tim seen from NEEMO base Editor's note: this is Timothy Peake’s blog during NEEMO 16

The past 24 hours has simply been an incredible experience. And considering that this entire NEEMO 16 mission has so far been an incredible experience that is saying something. About this time last night I was heading out the wet porch with fellow crewmember Steve Squyres for a night dive, with only one objective...to have fun

Night time underwater is something very special. Having lived with the marine life for several days now we have begun to recognize their routine. As the sun goes down, the fish start to get excited. Small larvae gather in the external lights of Aquarius and climb all over our port hole windows. The food chain kicks in and before we know it the huge, beautiful silver Tarpons are darting around at the top of the chain, with Barracuda taking their fill too and 'Gordon' the Goliath Grouper lazily keeping score like some oversized referee.

Steve and I were sitting on the ocean floor being awed by this amazing scene when in the corner of my eye I noticed an unmistakable tail swishing movement of a fish larger than even the Tarpon...Nurse Shark! It glided elegantly past us, looking a bit put out since we were sitting right where it had been sleeping the previous night...time to move over a little bit and free up some bed space. We were so thankful just to Tim in NEEMO have the time, peace and quiet to enjoy this wonderful scene, being able to lie back look up at the surface, watching our bubbles causing a bioluminescent firework display.

Only one person can enter and exit the habitat at a time, and it takes several minutes to hat and unhat a diver. So when it was finally time to come back inside I remained outside whilst Steve 'staged in', and during those few minutes I was able to enjoy the feeling of complete isolation, with all my lights turned out and just enjoying the environment and the eerie glow coming from the Aquarius wet porch. Steve's comment earlier had been spot on...just like a scene from the movie 'Aliens'!

With the previous night's dive fresh our minds, the morning brought the prospect of something completely different but equally exciting...submersibles. Today was the day that the crew began to work with our 'Space Exploration Vehicles' in order to assess how they contribute to the efficiency of the tasks that we have been performing throughout the mission. NEEMO Submersible By the time we were back in the water the light was fading slightly and the visibility dropping, so by the time the subs arrived we were once again treated to a completely surreal image of these two awesome floodlit machines slowly appearing out of the gloom. It really wasn't that hard to remind ourselves that we were simulating an asteroid mission... the special effects have so far been worthy of an award!

NEEMO 16…Teamwork!

Editor's note: this is Timothy Peake’s blog during NEEMO 16

'Good Teamwork' - it's something that makes the difference between winning or losing, success or failure and in extreme cases living or dying. As jargon, 'teamwork' is easy enough to say - much harder to define and it can be a tricky little recipe to create.

When everyone is working selflessly towards a common goal...that's a good start...and as a crew member of NEEMO 16 I am witnessing daily so many fantastic examples of great teamwork. Often it's the little things that make all the difference, like the thankless task our support divers had removing the trash bags from Aquarius this morning, or coming in from nearly 5 hours in the water and being met by Steve offering hot chocolate and Wasabi peas. I had told Steve that I didn't need anything, but he knew I did...and he was right!

Then there is the bigger picture, the huge support infrastructure from Mission Control and the immense logistical effort to ensure that we have the right tools, equipment, communications, medical support and IT to do the job, without which we could not accomplish the mission. There are people enduring many hours a day in a 5 foot Atlantic swell above us, or monitoring computer screens 24/7 in windowless rooms, not to mention those topside divers and supervisors who are looking after us in the water and ensuring that we have a seamless transition from one task to the next.

And then there are our two habitat technicians James and Justin, who quietly go about their business (OK, maybe James is not that quiet!) of knowing exactly what we need and when we need it...keeping us on track and safe in our temporary underwater home. And I have have only mentioned a fraction of the team so far.

The fact that so many people have come together from such diverse backgrounds and cultures, and in a short space of time gelled together into a tight knit and highly efficient team speaks volumes about the common goal that has united this team...pushing the boundaries of mankind's exploration into the solar system. And that is something most definitely worthy of all of our effort.

So NEEMO 16 has successfully achieved that tricky little recipe of great teamwork and as with all good recipes this also has a lot to do with the chef...but that is a subject for another blog...LEADERSHIP!"

Splashdown!

JAXA Astronaut Kimiya Yui, NASA Astronaut (and Neemo 16 Commander) Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, ESA Astronaut Tim Peake, and Veteran Aquanaut Dr. Steve Squyres.

Editors note: this is Timothy Peake's blog entry reprinted from the NASA Neemo Blog

After months of training and preparation the day finally arrived... Splashdown for NASA's NEEMO 16 mission. The crew woke early, eager to pack the few last remaining items into the 'pots' that our superb support crew, amongst their many other tasks, would be taking down to the Aquarius habitat ahead of our arrival.

The atmosphere on the Key Largo dockside this morning was buzzing with activity, conversation and good humour. The NEEMO mission team had gathered to say farewell to the saturation crew - and despite our intense excitement at what lay ahead we were genuinely sorry to say goodbye to all our friends and colleagues who have dedicate so much time and effort into making this a successful mission so far.

The weather today was kind, as it had been all week, and with only a 2-3 foot swell to deal with, our dive boat made quick work of the 8km out to Life Support Buoy, which feeds Aquarius with electricity and clean air. It felt quite weird -- donning SCUBA gear for what could have been a routine dive but knowing that we would not be surfacing for 12 more days! With our team photo complete and the hot Florida sun beating down on us -- finally jumping into the ocean was just the best feeling ever.

Since we had full cylinders of air on our backs the team enjoyed a great dive around Aquarius, which included of course posing for the customary pre-mission photos! As we positioned ourselves around one of Aquarius' port holes we were joined by an inquisitive little turtle, who we later learned was called Little Joe and was a huge fan with previous NEEMO crews. With the air getting low it was finally time to say goodbye to our topside dive buddies and head into the wet-porch of Aquarius, where our lab technicians James and Justin were waiting to greet us. Some of the first things we noticed were the higher pitch of our voices and the fact that it was very hard to whistle in the thick air under a pressure of 2.5 atmospheres.

Aquarius is such an amazing place -- unique as it is currently the only underwater habitat in the world and as James took us through the initial briefing it was hard not to be distracted by the Wrasse, Grouper, Barracuda and myriad of other marine animals who were queuing up outside the portholes to look at these strange humans who had come to share their environment for a short period of time.

Unfortunately, our free time to enjoy the new environment was limited as we had to get to work setting up our 'IV Station' with communications, IT, cameras, etc., and getting back into the water in pairs with our mini-workstations and jet-packs attached for more familiarization and practice of our asteroid extravehicular activity techniques.

So a successful and busy start to this amazing mission, and as we acclimatise to our new surroundings, it is very clear to see that the real fun is only just beginning!

To learn more about the NEEMO 16 mission, visit: www.nasa.gov/neemo.

Leonardo and the guardian angels

If you ever have a chance to visit NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) – and it’s well worth a visit - you will notice a brightly coloured painting on the wall of the main control room. On the left side is an unusual depiction of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, which seamlessly fades into a human being in the same pose, but dressed in a white spacewalker’s EMU. That’s the Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or simply “the suit”.

Part of the NBL. The control room is on the right sight and you can see the painting on the wall. (Photo courtesy of NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman)

I love how this painting strikes a connection between human spaceflight and Leonardo, a figure who explored the potential of the human genius in engineering, art and the observation of nature. I wish I could somehow tell Leonardo that today not only we have flying machines – albeit quite different from the ones he envisioned – but human beings can even “walk” in space. And I wish he could fly on the Space Station and use his talent to tell and depict the story of those human beings up there.

What I think is missing in Leonardo’s original drawing, however, is the connection between people, the idea of a collective endeavour. The NBL painting, on the contrary, is a tribute to the team, and in particular to some very special people: the NBL divers.

The painting on the NBL control room

Divers are our guardian angels in the water. First and foremost, they are in charge of our safety and are rigorously trained to respond to any suit emergency in an expeditious and effective manner to protect the life and health of the guys or girls entrusted to them.

Life savers in an emergency situation, in a nominal EVA training run divers are instrumental in providing astronaut with smooth and effective training. Briefly, it is on their shoulders to make the gap between pool training and real weightlessness as small as possible.

So, how do they do that? First of all, by means of a good weighout, the process of adding or removing weights and foam blocs from different locations of the suit to stabilize it in the water. When I’m in the suit, I really enjoy these moments, because I can relax as the divers spin me in different orientations to pinpoint residual tendencies of the suit to rotate.

Divers performing initial weighout at the beginning of the run (Photo: NASA)

Another trick to fool gravity in the pool is to use low-fidelity, neutrally-buoyant substitutes for tools and replacement parts, as long as it is compatible with training objectives. For example, you might have noticed that spacewalking crewmembers carry a Power Grip Tool (PGT) tucked away on their right side. In the pool we carry a lighter, fake PGT during translations. When we need to use it, we retrieve the light PGT from the swing arm and hand it to a diver, who will promptly swap it for a higher-fidelity PGT that can actually drive fasteners. Yes, that’s what the diver is doing in the paining!

Throughout the run, divers will continuously help to offset the weight of high-fidelity tools and replacement units or stabilize the suits in orientations that happen to be unstable in the water in that particular moment. They operate the underwater cameras that record the action and feed live images to the control room. And they are a great source of invaluable feedback and suggestions, since many of them have supported countless EVA training runs over the course of many years at the NBL.

Divers take charge of us in the moment we are lowered in the water. For a six-hour run, they work on three two-hour shifts, with the first-shift divers typically coming back in for the third shift.

Also, remember that suits in the pool are supplied with Nitrox and cooling water from the surface via umbilicals. Divers manoeuvre the umbilicals out of our way and sometimes they will ask us to let go of structure and they will fly around a module or a truss segment to reroute them. I like these occasional brief breaks from the hard work. Not only I welcome the opportunity to rest for a minute or two, but immensely enjoy the bird’s eye view of the Space Station under water offered by the quick “flyarounds”. It’s an immense privilege to be able to train in the NBL. If it wasn’t for the suit, I would probably pinch myself once in a while.