Neutral Buoyancy Lab visit during Johnson Space Center Level 9 Tour
Channel: Angela Brett
Date: 29/01/2017

I did a Level 9 Tour of Johnson Space Center in Houston (see https://spacecenter.org/attractions/level-9-tour/) on 1 March 2016, and I highly recommend it. One thing we did was visit the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, a huge pool with a replica of the International Space Station in it where astronauts can train for spacewalks. They are weighted such that they have neutral buoyancy in the water, which is a bit like being in microgravity (this is a similar idea to the zero-gravity wall you can use as part of the Astronaut Training Experience at Kennedy Space Center: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ4inh0R1og) and of course they're surrounded by water, so they get the air they need from their space suit as they would on a real EVA.

I don't remember which astronaut(s) were in the pool, and we couldn't really see them very well from where we were, though we could see the tethers and support divers. There were also some people from Petrofac using the pool for survival training.

The song at the beginning is 'Level Up' by Paul and Storm; I just searched my iTunes library for level-9-related things. You can buy it from https://paulandstorm.bandcamp.com/track/level-up

I'll put up videos from other parts of the tour at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ-l6mr1dW0jFmdibMXiMEf3BNmYj3Vbc