Astronauts to train in undersea lab base
Astronauts are expected to spend 10 days living in an undersea laboratory off the coast of Key Largo to train for space missions. The participants will also plant coral as part of a reef-restoration mission.
A submerged laboratory off Key Largo will serve as home base for American and European astronauts training for the rigors of space exploration.
Astronauts with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the European Space Agency are set to spend 10 days inside the Aquarius Reef Base, which is operated 62 feet below the ocean’s surface by Florida International University marine biologists, beginning Monday.
And, while they’re down there, one of their main jobs will be planting coral-reef nurseries, a conservation practice pioneered by the Keys-based Coral Restora
tion Foundation in 2007.
The astronauts will be trained by the CRF on land before embarking on their mission.
“The environment at Aquarius Reef Base is completely different from where we traditionally grow our corals,” Amelia Moura, CRF’s science program manager, said in a statement. “This makes it an exciting opportunity to further understand how different coral species and different genetic strains within certain species react to different environments, different fish communities, and different light conditions.”
After the mission, the corals will be monitored by FIU scientists, according to the CRF.
The exercise is also aimed at training the astronauts for performing tasks in a space environment, said Bill Todd, project leader for NASA’s Extreme Environment Mission Operations 23 expedition.
“The close parallels of inner and outer space exploration will be clearly demonstrated during this undersea mission,” Todd said in a statement. “The daily seafloor traverses, or extravehicular activities in space jargon, are jampacked with technology and operations concept testing, as well as complex marine science. In the interior of Aquarius, aquanauts and astronauts will tackle an array of experiments and human research related to long duration space travel.”