NASA has turned their 6.2-million gallon Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL), located at the Sonny Carter Training Facility in Houston, Texas, into a replica Moon surface. This pool is 40-feet deep and simulates one-sixth of Earth’s gravity, but now has lunar regolith-like sand, boulders, and a replica of the Sun’s movement.
V2X, the company who transformed the pool, says the lunar regolith sand allows astronauts to experience traversing through that environment. The only thing they cannot recreate is weightlessness, as suited astronauts will still feel weight due to the additional weight of their suits, while the water drag can make some tasks more difficult than in space. Previously, the NBL pool was used to train astronauts for extended stays aboard the International Space Station as well as Orion spacecraft recoveries.
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- Features 5 LEGO astronaut minifigures, including 3 with space suits and helmets with interchangeable hair elements, plus toy tools and accessories
- This outer space station toy includes science and botany labs, sleeping quarters for the LEGO astronaut minifigures and a docking space capsule
