Practicing for space underwater:
inventing neutral buoyancy training, 1963–1968
Michael J. Neufeld
a,* and John B. Charles
baNationalAirandSpaceMuseum,SmithsonianInstitution,Washington,DC,USA
bLyndonB.JohnsonSpaceCenter,NationalAeronauticsandSpaceAdministration,Houston,TX,USA
Neutral buoyancy’s value was far from obvious when humanspaceflightbeganin1961.Startingin1964,En- vironmentalResearchAssociates,atinycompanyinthe suburbsofBaltimore,developedthekeyinnovationsin anobscureresearchprojectfunded byNASA’sLangley ResearchCenter.ThenewHoustoncenterdismissedit untilamid-1966 EVAcrisis, afterwhich it rapidlytook over. In parallel, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center developed manyof the sametechniques, as didmany largeaerospace corporations,yet thelong-runtechno- logical impactof corporate activitywas near zero.Be- causeERAandMarshall’spioneeringactivitiesledtothe twolong-runningNASAtrainingcentersatHoustonand Huntsville, those two organizations deserve primary creditfortheconstructionoftheneutralbuoyancytech- nologicalsystem.
Almosteveryday,somewhereintheworld,astronautsor cosmonautsarepracticingforEVA(extravehicularactivity or ‘spacewalking’) underwater. Atthe NeutralBuoyancy Laboratory of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston,TX,crewmembersrehearseproceduresinagigan- tic,6-million-gallon(23-million-liter)poolholdingfull-size mockups of multiple modules of the International Space Station(ISS).Openedin1997,itsupersededearliertanks built atthe NationalAeronauticsand SpaceAdministra- tion’spremierhumanspaceflightcenters. Russiancosmo- nautstrainattheHydrolabinStarCity,outsideMoscow,a largefacilitybuiltin1980;EuropeanSpaceAgencyastro- nautsworkinHouston,and alsoattheirowntankatthe EuropeanAstronautCentre,Cologne,Germany;Japanese astronautsattheTsukubaSpaceCenternearTokyo.China recentlyopenedafacilityattheChineseAstronautResearch andTrainingCenterinBeijing,toprepareforEVAsfromits ShenzhouspacecraftandTiangongstations.1Inshort,‘neu- tralbuoyancytraining’(so-called becausethespacesuited astronautsareweightedtobeneutrallybuoyant,simulating weightlessness)hasbecomenormaltechnology.Indeed,it is absolutely critical to the success of numerous human spaceflight programs. Assembling the ISS, or repairing
theHubble SpaceTelescope,wouldhavebeen impossible withoutit.
Neutral buoyancy’svaluewasfar fromobviouswhen humanspaceflightbeganin1961,however.NASAatfirst took nointerestintraining itsastronautsthis way.Be- ginning in 1964, Environmental Research Associates (ERA) atiny companyinthesuburbsofBaltimore,MD, developed the key innovations in an obscure research project funded by NASA’s Langley Research Center (LaRC)inHampton,VA. The newHoustoncenter (then namedtheMannedSpacecraftCenterorMSC)dismissed ituntilamid-1966EVAcrisis,afterwhichitrapidlytook over. In parallel, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)in Huntsville,AL, developedmanyof thesame techniques, as did many large aerospace corporations.
Some, notablyBoeingandGeneral Electric, madelarge investmentsinneutralbuoyancy,andexperimentedwith analternatesuittechnology,yetthelong-runtechnologi- calimpactofthatmajorcorporateactivitywasnearzero.
BecauseERAandMarshall’spioneeringactivitiesledto thetwolong-runningNASAtrainingcentersatHouston and Huntsville, which in turn influenced other space agencies,thosetwoorganizationsdeserveprimarycredit fortheconstructionoftheneutralbuoyancytechnological system.
Wehavechosenthetermtechnologicalsystembecause neutralbuoyancywasinventedinthe1960slessasanew technologythanasanassemblageofexistingtechnologies, tacit knowledge, and safety practices. In technological systems theory, originatingfrom theworkof Thomas P.
Hughes,thetermhasbeenconfinedalmostexclusivelyto largesystemslikeelectricalpowernetworksandmilitary- industrialprojects.Onthismodel,NASA’shumanspace- flight complexcan beconsidered a technologicalsystem, andtheEVAproblemsthataroseinthemid-1960s,touse Hughes’ military metaphor, were a reverse salient that required organizational and technological fixes. But no fundamentally new technological devices were required to construct neutral buoyancy training, although some local andspecificinnovations were needed.Rather, local innovatorsandsystembuilders,touseanotherHughesian term, assembled existing, often commercially available technologies like scuba equipment, full-pressure suits, cameras and swimming pools, and matched them with
Correspondingauthor:Neufeld,M.J. ([email protected]).
*Tel.:+12026332434.
Availableonline15July2015
ScienceDirect
www.sciencedirect.com 0160-9327/PublishedbyElsevierLtd.Agreementsigned2015.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2015.05.006
the experienced-based cultures needed to make neutral buoyancyworkableandsafe.Asaconcessiontothediffer- ences in scale,neutralbuoyancy could perhaps becalled a small technological system, a sub-component of a largersystem.2
Theeventsthatledtothiscriticalinnovationhaveonly begun to emergerecently in popular accounts and have never been subject to scholarly examination. The older officialNASAhistoriesandkeyastronautmemoirsbarely mentionneutralbuoyancy’soriginsandofteninaccurately, while arecentsemi-popularhistoryby DavidJ.Shayler, WalkinginSpace,givesapartialaccountoftheBaltimore storyinafewparagraphs.3ThefulldimensionsoftheERA storybeganemergingafter2012inpopulararticleswritten by,orinthecooperationwith,thesurvivingfounderofthe company, G. Samuel Mattingly, who died in November 2014.4Marshall’searlyworkhasscarcelybeentreatedat all, and when it has, authors have mostly noted MSFC Director WernhervonBraun’s stealthyconstruction ofa gianttankinHuntsvillethroughalegallydubiousend-run aroundtheNASAprocurementsysteminthelate1960s.5 Duetoscantsurvivingdocumentation,theMarshallstory remains difficult to tell, in contrast to somewhat richer materialonERA,butthisarticlewillattempttoexamine bothstoriesanddrawsomeconclusionsaboutthecontin- gent and improvised creation of the neutral buoyancy technologicalsystem.
Theproblemofweightlessness
‘Weightlessness,’‘zero-gravity’and‘zero-G’aretheterms mostoftenusedtoconnotethestateoffreefallexperienced duringorbitalorcoastingflightinspace.(‘Microgravity’is nowthe usualtechnicalterm–denoting themicroscopic accelerationsthatexistevenwhilefloatinginanapparent absenceofgravity.)Theexistenceofthisphenomenonwas wellknowninearlyspaceadvocacyandsciencefiction,but wasmostlywishedawaywithdeviceslikemagneticshoes androtatingspacestations.AfterWorldWarII,however, itgraduallybecameanareaofconcernforthenewdisci- pline of spacemedicine, growing out of aeromedicine as rocket andjetaircraftenteredserviceandhuman space- flightbecamemoreandmoreimminent.6
IntheUnitedStates,theformationofNASAoutofthe NationalAdvisoryCommitteeforAeronautics(NACA)in fall 1958andthesimultaneouscreationofoneofitsfirst programs,ProjectMercury,madetheimpactofweightless- nessonastronautperformancesuddenlyarealquestion.
Foremost was simplythe ability toperform in acockpit while weightless. Some physicians conjured frightening scenariosofbasichumanfunctionslikesightandswallow- ingfailing,whichcontributed toengineeringdecisionsto make the first U.S. human spacecraft, Mercury, to be largely automated. (Its Soviet counterpart, Vostok, was entirelyautomated,andrequiredaspecialoverridecodeto unlockthecontrols.)Leavingthecapsuleandperforming workinspacewasnotfeasibleandpreparationscouldbe putoffuntil alaterprogram.
From the originsof spacemedicine, it was obviousto researchersthatwaterimmersionwasonepossiblewayto simulate weightlessness. Among the many physiological experimentsconductedwereonesbyDr.DuaneGraveline
ofthe SchoolofAerospace Medicine atBrooks AirForce Base in San Antonio, TX in the early 1960s. He had subjectsinscubawetsuitsandaviators’fullpressurehel- mets spend extended periods of time underwater in a specially constructed tank.7 Informal experiments with scuba-equipped divers probably were the first attempts tosimulate EVAworkunderwater, but thesehave been largelyundocumented.(TheAqualung,inventedinWorld WarIIoccupied France by JacquesCousteau andE´ mile Gagnan,wasthebreakthroughthatmadescuba,anacro- nymfor‘self-containedunderwaterbreathingapparatus,’
feasible.)
For NASA, it was not a concrete problem until the Mercury program ended in 1963 and managers needed toformulatetrainingplansforthetwo-manGeminispace- craft,whichwould demonstratekeyobjectives, including EVA, needed for the Apollo lunar landing goal set by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. On January 30, 1964, Mercury astronaut Donald K.‘Deke’ Slayton, who hadbecomeMSCAssistantDirectorofFlightCrewOpera- tions after hehadbeen medicallydisqualified forspace- flight,issuedaGeminiEVAtrainingplan.Itisnoteworthy as much for what did not happen as did. He quickly dismissed weightlessness in aircraft flying parabolas (which is not a simulation, but actual freefall for some secondsastheaircraftcoastsoverthepeakinitstrajecto- ry).Instead:
The onlypractical meansof simulating the overall effectsofreducedgravityforrelativelylongperiodsof timeisby waterimmersion.Afairlyrealisticsimu- lation of some of the techniques and problems in accomplishing extra-vehicular activities can be ac- complished by submerging the Boilerplate #201 in the Ellington tank. The flight crews can then don SCUBAequipmentandpracticesuchtasksasegress, ingress,opening andclosingthe spacecrafthatches andmaneuveringoverthespacecraft.8
MSC used a water tank at nearby Ellington Air Force Base,outsideHouston,totrainastronautstomakeocean exitsoutoftheirspacecraft.Boilerplate#201wasthefirst Geminisimulator,onlyrecentlydeliveredforwater-tank and open-water training exercises. It was intended for use in rough water and even inverted and partially submerged, so full immersion would not have been impractical.
YetSlayton’ssuggestionwasdiscardedforreasonsnot documentedin surviving MSCrecords. Hedoes mention another new tool: frictionless, air-bearing surfaces, in which an astronaut would stand or be placed on a disk generatinganaircurrentaboveaverysmoothsurface.In theory,itwasa‘five-degreesoffreedom’simulator(theonly dimension ofmovement missingwould bevertical tothe surface),butinpracticetheastronautcouldmoveabouton the floor in onlyone body orientation at a time. Such a simulatorcameintoserviceatMSCin1965,butitappears to have been useful only for practicing with handheld maneuvering guns or jetpacks.9 Aircraft zero-Gtraining became the primary method; ‘water immersion’ was ignored.Perhapstheneedtotrainallastronautsinscuba,
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orthelackofrealismoftrainingindivinggear,asopposed toapressurizedspacesuit,wereinhibitors.AndNASAwas alreadyusinganAirForceKC-135zero-Gtrainingaircraft (themilitaryprecursoroftheBoeing707airliner),which could create several-dozen thirty-second weightlessness periodsonasingleflight.Thedownsidewasthatbetween eachofthesewasa2-Gpull-outatthebottomofthedive.
Thisconstantup-and-down motion quicklyearned itthe nickname‘thevomitcomet.’10
EarlyERAworkwithLangley
RatherthanatMannedSpacecraftCenter,NASA’sorigi- nal experiments in neutral buoyancy arose in early 1964 almost by accident at Langley. Through much of itshistoryithadbeenprimarilyanaerodynamicinstitu- tion.WhenNACAbecame an operationalspace agency, new centers arose (including MSCout ofLangley) that weretocarryoutrocketandspacecraftprograms,while LaRC remainedfocused onresearch, nowwith alarger spacecomponent.ThetidewaterVirginiacenterhadbeen conductingspacestationstudieswithaerospacecontrac- torssinceNASAbegan,butthehugetechnicalandfinan- cialchallengeofKennedy’sMoongoalmeanttheagency hadtopostponeanEarth-orbiting station, possiblyinto theseventies.Langleyscaledbackitsambitionsin1962/
63toasmaller,non-rotating,cylindricalMannedOrbiting ResearchLaboratory(MORL).Itletstudycontractswith BoeingandDouglasandultimatelyselectedthelatterto refinetheconcept.11ButLangleyalsodidalotofin-house researchandworkedwithsmallcontractorsontechnical details.OneofthemwasEnvironmentalResearchAssoci- ates in Randallstown, MD, in the northwest Baltimore suburbs.
Twotechnicalentrepreneursintheirthirtieswithpar- tialengineering andscienceeducations,G.Samuel Mat- tingly and Harry Loats, formed ERA around 1962 (Figures1and2). Theyhadearlierworkedtogetherat a Baltimore-area company specializing in aerial refueling.
From their knowledge of hosesand reels, they hadsold LangleyandtheGeminiProjectOfficeontheideaof5000- ft.tetherforanastronautworkingoutsidethespacecraft, atatimewhenEVAconceptswereveryinchoate.Thathad beenroutedthroughamajorcontractor,Marquardt,buta 1963contracttoexaminesealsandsealantsforthestation wasdirect.WhenMattingly’sLaRCcontactsbriefedthem onthestation,presumablyMORL,henotedthatithadno airlock.Itwasanoldideainsciencefiction:achamberthat couldbedepressurizedandpressurized,allowingpassage outsidewithoutlosingtoomuchcabinatmosphere. Chal- lenged to produce a concept, Mattingly, a self-described
‘spacenut’whohadbeenaBuckRogersfaninhisyouth, claimshesaid:‘Well,it’sjustathingfourfeetindiameter, ...sixfeetlong,andithasadooroneitherendandonecut intheside.’12
Theirprimarycontractmonitor,OttoTroutoftheSpace StationResearchGroup,hadthemodelshopbuildaclear plastic cylinder of those dimensions, with three wooden hatches:twocircularandoneovaloneatoneoftheends.A pictureofitdatedtoJanuary1964showstwospacesuited, unpressurizedsubjectsworkingin1-Gconditionstotesta hatch. That same month, ERAbegan anew contract on
‘The Study of the Performance of an Astronaut During Ingress-EgressManeuversThroughAirlocksandPassage- ways.’Justlookingatthemockup,accordingtoMattingly, raisedquestionsabouttheeaseofturningaroundinsidean airlock ofthat size while wearing apressure suit under weightlessconditions.Itwasobviousthatnormalgravity conditionswouldnotbeameaningfultest.13
Lacking access to a zero-G aircraft, Trout, Mattingly and Loats quickly thought of immersing the airlock in water. In order todo that, the ERA personnel firsthad tobetrainedinpressuresuitsafety.Mattinglyknewthe nearbynavalairstationfromtheiraerialrefuelingdays,so
Figure1.HarryL.Loats,Jr.,co-founderofERA,inaGeminispacesuitin1966.
CourtesyofSamMattingly.
Figure2.G.SamuelMattingly,ERAco-founder,intheOrbitalWorkshopmockup in1966.
CourtesyofSamMattingly.
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one day theywent over unannouncedto findthe Navy’s pressuresuitschool.Thetrainerstheresubsequentlyput themthroughthevacuumchamber,includinganexplosive decompressionattheequivalentof70,000ftandthedunk- ingdevice,whichtrainedpilotstoexitacrashedaircraftat sea upside-downunderwaterinafullpressuresuit.Mat- tinglyqualifiedon2June1964,andwasgivenamember- ship card in SPACE, the half-jokingly titled Society of PioneeringAstronautsandCelestialExplorers.14
Shortly thereafter,Mattingly,LoatsandTrout gotto usetheofficersclubswimmingpoolontheAirForcesideof thebaseforasingleafternoon.Theyfilmedsometestsin the airlock mockup,but visitors frequently interrupted themtoaskwhatwasgoingonortooffertohelp.Itwas clear thatthis was nolong-term solution. The two pro- posedtoTroutthattheytakethemockuptoBaltimoreand setthemselvesinapoolupthere.Hereadilyagreedand theyputitonthebackoftheirlittleVolkswagentruckand droveoff.15
In a continuation of the very informal culture of the time, inwhichthespaceracewith theSovietUnion was paramount, the Navy’s schoolallowed them toborrow a coupleofMarkIVMod0‘Arrowhead’ fullpressuresuits with no documents signed or questions asked, if Mat- tingly’smemoryiscorrect.(PresumablyTroutorsomeone fromLangleyverifiedorcouldverifythelegitimacyoftheir contract.) The Mercury spacesuit had been a modified Navy MarkIV.The Arrowheadversionincorporated bel- low joints, which allowed a little better movement in a garmentoriginallymeantjusttoprotectapilotinaseated position.Thejointsminimizedthevolumechangethattook placewhilemovingthelimbs,buteverymovementinthe pressurized suit was a battle against its tendency tobe rigid: the wearer was inside the inflated balloon of the rubberpressurebladder.Mattinglynotesthatwhenthey puthimthealtitude chamber,at70,000fttheexteriorof thesuitfelt‘likearock.’16
Fromsellingpoolequipmentinapreviousbusiness,he knew that thefiltration systemwas particularlygood at theMcDonogh School,aboy’smilitaryinstitutionnotfar fromERA’s‘little$50-a-monthoffice’inRandallstown.He quickly madea deal with the headmaster, Robert Lam- born,torentthepoolatthesamerateastheRedCrossdid forswimminglessons,aslongasnoequipmentwaslefton the pool deck and activities were on a non-interference basiswiththeswimteamandotherscheduleduses.Photo- graphsshowthatthefirstexperimentsinthetransparent airlockmockupweremadeinthedeep endofthepoolon 18July1964.Undertheircontract,theybeganasystem- aticcomparisonofwhatittooktodothevarioustasks,on thegroundandinthepool.Thepressurizationlevelofthe suit,fromonepoundpersquareinch(PSI)overtheexter- nalpressureupto3.5,wasanothervariableintimingthe abilitytoperformvarioustasks(Figure3).17
Thanks toMattingly andLoats’ connectionswith the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside Dayton, OH, from the flight refueling days, Mattingly and William Franz,anineteen-year-oldERAscubadiver,alsocarried out comparative tests in a zero-G training aircraft. On 14 August 1964, Mattingly qualified with a ride on the KC-135jet.SubsequentlyheandFranzdidadayortwoof
testsintheold,piston-engineC-131B(aconvertedConvair 240airliner),whichwasmucheasiertoschedulethanthe
‘K-bird.’Its periods of weightlessness only lasted 8–10s andonlyafewparabolascouldbedoneatatime.Mattingly feltthat includingthezero-Gaircraftwas politically im- portantforthestudy,asitwasviewedatthetimeasthe baselineforweightlesstestingonthe Earth.But heand Loatsquicklycametotheconclusionthatitcostmuchmore anddeliveredalesssatisfactorysimulationofEVA.18
ERAcompleted itsfirstreportonneutralbuoyancyat theendofAugust.Thestudyandthefilms madeunder- water sufficiently impressed Otto Trout’s superior, Paul Hill, that Langley extended their contact. Underwater tests were repeatedly extended, through 1965 and into early1966.ERAandLangleyexperimentedwithdifferent size hatches. They may have also shrunk the mockup diametertothe pointwhereitwas nolongerpossible to turn around, valuableinformation fora potentialspace- craft design. Harry Loats primarily handled technical reportwritingandSamMattinglythecontractingrelation- ships.Althoughfitandintheirthirties,theyfoundworking inthepressuresuitsufficientlystrenuousthattheygaveit overtocollege-agescuba-divingenthusiaststheyrecruited attheonlydiveshopintheBaltimorearea.Eventhen,only acouplereadilyadaptedtothespacesuits;mostactedas safetydiversandhelp.19
It was during 1964–1965 that ERA assembled the technologiesandpracticesthatmakeupaworkingneutral buoyancytechnologicalsystem.Muchofitinvolvedcom- bining commercially available technologies with ones availableonloanfromthemilitaryorNASA:scubatanks, regulators,wetsuitsandrelatedequipment;full-pressure suits;stillandmoviecameraequipmentwithwaterproof housingsmadebyERA;andmockupsproducedbyERAor Langley.MattinglyandLoatsmodifiedthepressurereg- ulators and air supply for the Arrowhead suits. They decided to use air instead of pure oxygen to avoid the oxygentoxicityeffectsthatmightsetinonlongerdives;
theyadaptedscubatankstomountonthebackofthesuits.
Figure3.NeutralBuoyancytestintheMcDonoghpoolwiththeNASALangley airlockmockup,October1965.
CourtesyofSamMattingly.
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In mid-1966, when Gemini work began, they created anumbilicalconnectiontotanksonthepooldeck,asthis wasthe wayalmost allGemini EVAswerecarried out, with the astronaut connected to the spacecraft oxygen supply.20
A significant part of making neutral buoyancy work wassimply learningfromexperience.Agas-pressurized spacesuit is a balloon; the wearer will float. The first lesson was the placement of weights to make the test subject neutrally buoyant in all six degrees of freedom (threeaxesofthebody,andthreedirectionsofmotion).In theLangleyofficersclub pool,Mattinglynoticedthathe didnot riseor fall, butwith lead-weightedbootson, he tended to become vertical. In the McDonogh pool they started with bags of lead welding shot tied in various placesonthesuit andbytrial-and-errorlearned howto make the suited subject neutral in all axes; later they adaptedweightsattachedbybeltsandstraps.Itwasan art,ratherthan ascience.The ERAexperimentersalso discoveredthat aftertwenty minutes,the absorption of water by the spacesuit’s cover layer would change the buoyancy,andsothey hadtoincorporateperiodicreba- lancingintotheschedule.Theyalsonotedthelimitations ofthesimulation:movementthroughwatercreateddrag notpresentinavacuum,butmotiontendedtobeslow,so itdidnotmakeasignificantdifference.Thesuitedsubject also wasnot weightlessinsidethe suit, eventhough he wasneutrallybuoyant,soworkingupside-downwaspar- ticularly uncomfortable,as the blood stillrushed tothe head.21
Safetyprotocolswerecrucial.Scubadiverswerelimited tothirtyminutesessionsbecauseofthedangersofhypo- thermia,evenwithpoolwaterinthelow seventiesFahr- enheit.Most critical were emergencyprocedures forsuit failure.Withtwohundredpoundsofleadweightson,ifthe suit’sintegrityfails,thewearercouldbegoingstraightto thebottomofthe pool.MattinglyandLoats experienced thatearly,whenthelatterwaswearingaMarkIVandthe formerwasinscubagear.
Andthesealonhis[Loats’]faceplateblewout,which meanshegetshitinthefacewithabunchofwater.
AndI’mtheonly[one]therewith him,andhecan’t moveatall.SoIgrabbedhim,Igotbehindhimand gotmyheadupunderthetank,andIwasswimming witheverythingIhad,tryingtomakeitgo.Seemed likeforever,andIfinallygothimtothepointwhere hisfoottoucheddown[intheshallowend]andthen his other foot moved, and I figured, ‘Thank the Lord.’22
Theyneededmorethanonesafetydiverwhenanyonewas workinginthesuit.
Bruce Tharp, a diver whobegan working for ERAin 1965,experiencedasimilaraccidentwhenhewasworking in an airlock mockup with another suited diver, George Hay,inthetightspace.Hayaccidentally‘kicksmyairoff, andthehelmetjustimplodeswithwater.’Becausetheair’s entrypointwastheMarkIV’shelmet,withexhaledgases ventingintothebodythroughacheckvalvetopressurize thesuit,
itfeltlikesomebodybangingyouinthestomachwith abaseballbat,becausethreeandahalfpounds[suit pressure] ... was trying to force your stomach out throughyourmouth,andIwasalreadyoutofbreath because,ofcourse,Iwasdoingalotofwork.
Quickly,Hay’sbrotherSteve,actingasasafetydiver,stuck ascubaregulatorinhismouth,‘whichistheonlyreasonI didn’tdrown.’23
Neutralbuoyancy’soriginsataerospacefirmsand NASAMarshall,1964–1966
By 1966, several more organizations had independently developedtheirownversionsofaneutralbuoyancytech- nologicalsystem.Atmost,theywereonlydimlyawareof ERA’s work through conference presentations by Otto TroutorERArepresentatives.Unfortunately,itisdifficult tofindoutwhathappenedattheaerospacefirms,asthey areinfamous fornotkeeping records.Oftenthe onlyevi- dencethatsurvivesisphotographs,technicalreports,and newspaper photos or articles that provide at least an occasionalchronologicalreference.MarshallSpaceFlight Center’scaseisonlyslightlybetterdocumented.
Boeing in Seattle was probably the first aerospace company to experiment with neutral buoyancy, as it wastheprimecontractorforamilitaryspaceplanecalled the X-20 Dyna-Soar. Engineers in its Bioastronautics Organization started beforeLangley andERA, working with scuba equipment in Angle Lake in September 1963. They modified a spacesuit for use in the lake as well, and experimented well into 1964. Although Dyna Soar wascanceledinlate1963,the companyformalized theeffortasProjectOGER,for0-GEffectsResearch,and built anelaborate NeutralBuoyancyFacilitywitha25- foot-diameter (7.6m) tank that was 20ft (6.1m) deep.
NewspaperphotosfromDecember1964showsuitedsub- jects in the water in Arrowhead suits; and a technical reportfromAugust1965confirmsthatfurtherworkwas donethatyear,notablyonanairlockmockup10ft(3m) longand54in.(1.37m)indiameter.TheBoeingfacility wasself-funded,apparentlyinthehopethatthecompany wouldplayalargerroleinhumanspaceflightprograms.
Butthepoolwasonlyinuseforabouttwoyearsbecause Bioastronautics closed in 1967, likely for lack of con- tracts.24
Convair/General Dynamics in San Diego and Garrett AiResearch in Los Angeles were two more West Coast aerospace firms working in neutral buoyancy. Lack of documentation makes itdifficult topin downwhen they began. There isa Convair picturefrom 1964 ofa suited subjectunderwater,andsubsequentworkcontinueduntil atleast1969underanAirForcecontract;Convairbuiltits owndedicated underwatertestfacility,presumablywith companyfunds, in1967.A1967 Garretttechnicalreport demonstratesthatitsworkwasbeingdoneunderLangley contractina30ft(9m)diameteroutdoortankthecompa- ny constructed at the AiResearch plant. The amount of workreported suggests that thestudy beganin 1966. It covered astronautmaintenance andassemblytasks that appeartoolargetobehandledbyERAinarentedswim- mingpool.25
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GeneralElectric’sValleyForgeSpaceTechnologyCen- ter, outside Philadelphia, mounted the most elaborate corporate neutral-buoyancy program. Under the leader- ship of Carl Cording andTheodore Marton, work likely startedlatein1964,asinearly1965thecompanyrented thePhiladelphiaAquarium’sAquaramafacility.Thetank had a windowed side for dolphin shows. The testgroup sankamockupofinteriorlaboratoryareasoftheDefense Department’sMannedOrbitingLaboratory(MOL)space- craftandcarriedoutworktestswithsubjectsinscubagear.
Laterphotographsalsoshowspacesuits.26
MOL,theprojectthatreplacedDyna-SoarinDecember 1963, was nominally totest the military uses of human spaceflight, butthat unclassifiedpurpose was– probably from theoutset–acoverstoryforanastronaut-operated reconnaissancesystemcodenamedDORIAN.GEbidforthe main contract, butendedup asa majorsubcontractor to Douglas Aircraftforequipmentinsidethelaboratorypor- tion.OperatingtheKH-10super-high-resolutiontelescopic camerawasthetwoastronauts’maintask,somethingthat had tobe avoidedor disguisedinopenneutralbuoyancy tests. MOL astronauts would have traveled toand from spaceinamodifiedGeminicapsulemountedtothetopendof thecylindricallaboratory,andwouldhavehadtomaneuver themselvesinweightlessnessthroughanarrowtunnelthat ranfromahatchbetweenthetwoejectionseatstotheliving and workingquarters.Thattrickymaneuveralsobecame partofGE’sneutralbuoyancywork,usingwire-meshmock- upsinnewexperimentsattheAquarama.27
Ratherthaninvestinginitsownlargetank,GEtooka differentapproach.In1966,itbeganbuildingafacilityat Buck Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, wherefull-size mockupscouldbesunkintheclear,warmtropicalwaters ofthe Caribbean.Thisfacilityseemstohavebeenmoti- vatedinpartbyMOLandinpartbyNASA’snewestspace stationprogram,anOrbitalWorkshoptobecreatedoutof the refittedS-IVBstageofaSaturn IB.MarshallSpace Flight Center inAlabama proposed this project in mid- 1965; it hadevolved fromearlier ‘spent stage’ ideasfor reusingtheemptyboosterstagethatwouldotherwisebe abandonedinorbit.TheOrbitalWorkshopbecameacen- tral project of the Apollo Applications Program (AAP), which the NASA leadership created in August 1965 to findfurtherusesfortheApollo-Saturnhardwarebuiltfor the Moon landing. (AAPeventuallyshranktoSkylab, a single,fullyoutfittedS-IVBworkshoporbitedbyaSaturn V in 1973.) The S-IVB had a diameter of 22ft (6.7m), which, if mocked-upat full scale,required a verylarge tank. GE invested its own money in the outdoor Buck Island facility, and sank a giant, wire-mesh Workshop mockup there in the winter of 1966/67. The only study contract fromNASA for which there is any evidence is
‘DesignCriteriaforMaintenanceandRepairofAdvanced Space Stations,’ awarded in 1966 through the Office of AdvancedResearchandTechnologyatHeadquarters,and administeredbyMarshall.Itwasrenewedin1967.Work onthatcontractwascarriedoutatawatertankinHunts- ville,butneverinBuckIsland.In1967/68,GEalsoused theVirginIslandsiteforMOLsimulation.28
Therewasonemajordifferenceintheneutralbuoyancy systemGeneralElectricassembled:thewater-pressurized
suit.Usingwatertopressurizethemainbodyofthesuit meant that little weight was needed to achieve neutral buoyancy, and the suit was more comfortable for the wearer, since he floated inside it. Proper control of the watertemperaturealsocouldincreasecomfortandreduce overheating. But it required either that the ‘astronaut’
wearascubamaskandregulatorinsidean openhelmet, whichrestrictedvision,orputonaself-containedhelmet withitsownaircircuit,whichGEindeedinvented,along with a backpack to circulate supply air and water to differentsuitports.Moving thelimbswasalessrealistic simulation, however, as the wearer was pushing water aroundinsidethesuit.Air-pressurized-suitadvocatesalso considereditlesssafe,asthewater-pressurizedonedidnot haveresidualair insidethebodyofthesuit,ifair tothe helmet was cut off. While water-pressurization was in some ways more convenient, it was a less-accurate simulationof howan air-pressurizedsuit feltin weight- lessness. Convair and Boeing experimented with water pressurizationaswell(itisunclearwhodevelopeditfirst), butitneverspreadtoNASA’sgroups,whichbeganwithair pressurizationandconsideredittobesuperior.29
GEhadhopedthatitssignificantinvestmentinneutral buoyancy would provide itan entre´einto the Workshop project,butthatwasthwartedbecauseaMSFCgroupgrew organicallyoutoftheAAPprogramin1965.Aswastrueat Boeing,neutralbuoyancyexperimentsatMarshallbegan withtheindividualinitiativeofscubaenthusiasts.Charles
‘Charlie’ Cooper, a twenty-eight-year-old electrical engi- neerintheMSFCManufacturingEngineeringLaboratory, recruitedacolleague,CharlesStokes,toexperimentinan 8-foot(2.4m)watertankusedfortheexplosive-formingof metalstructures.Thefirstproblemwashoweasyitwould beforastronautstomovearoundlarge,high-massobjects inmicrogravity, asthe lackofweight didnotalter their inertia.InanearlyMarshall conceptionforan AAPmis- sion,anApollospacecraftwouldrendezvouswithitsempty S-IVBlaststageandanastronautwouldremoveitslarge, sphericalST-124inertial-guidanceplatformfromtherock- et.CooperandStokestookoneofthespheresandfilledit withwateruntilitwasneutrallybuoyantandtriedpush- ingitaround inthetank.Itprovedeasierthan expected (Figure4).30
Cooper’smemoryofwhen thisimpromptuexperiment occurredisvague,buthebelievesitwassoonafterthefirst AmericanEVA,whichEdward WhitemadefromGemini IVon3June1965.(Two-and-a-halfmonthsearlierAlexei Leonovhadtakenthefirstever‘spacewalk’fromVoskhod 2.) Hesuggested that MSFCcontactthe MannedSpace- craftCenteraboutwhatwaslearnedfromWhite’sexperi- ence,butitwasnotdone.Alikelycausewas theintense rivalrybetweenHoustonandHuntsville,whichwasexac- erbatedbyMarshall’sintrusiononMSC’ssacredastronaut turf for AAP projects like the Workshop. As a result, Huntsvilleoftentried tokeepsecretfrom Houston what itwasdoingtopreventaturfbattleoranorderfromNASA Headquarterstostop.31
When Cooper and Stokes’ boss, Robert Schwingham- mer,foundoutabouttheexperiments,hechewedthemout forunauthorizedaction,thensupportedtheidea.Hesent CooperandStokesfortrainingintheNavy’spressuresuit
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schoolinMiramar,California,and(tocontinuethealmost exactparallelwithERA’sexperience)borrowedtwoMark IVArrowheadspacesuitsfromit.Theybegantoaccumu- lateexperienceinthe8-foottankonhowtoworkinneutral buoyancywithair-pressurizedsuits.32
In the winter of 1965/66, Schwinghammer’s group repurposed a larger 25-foot (7.6m)-diameter explosive- formingtankthat,liketheother,wassunkintheground.
They turned an unneeded, corrugated-metal prototype interstage section from a Saturn V into the cylindrical walls ofa shed, put aconical, tent-like roof overit, and installed lights and steam-heating for the water. On 10 January 1966, Werner Kuers, Director of the ManufacturingEngineeringLaboratory,reportedtoMar- shall DirectorWernher von Braun in the Weekly Notes thatthefacilitywasready.Itwasapparentlythefirsttime vonBraunheardofit.Workinpressuresuits,Kuersnoted, wouldsoon begin on‘[a]ir lockingress,egress,operation andfamiliarization...withasimplifiedairlockmock-up’
fortheWorkshop,aswellas‘[r]emovaloftheS-IVBhatch cover’onthedomeoftheliquid-hydrogentankthatwould formthelivingquartersandexperimentarea.Laterthey wouldworkonstudiesoftheremovaloftheST-124plat- form sphereanda‘propellant utilizationvalve’from the stage’sJ-2engine,anotherprojectedearlytask.‘Twoofour people[presumablyCooperandStokes]havebeenchecked outinastronautsuitssofar,’andmorewouldfollow.Butit tooksixmonthstomakethelargetankintoanoperational facility.Kuersreportedon25July1966that‘[f]orthefirst timelastweek,theMarkIVpressuresuitwasusedunder waterinaneutralbuoyancyzerogsimulationexperiment’
inthelargetank.33
ERAandtheGeminiEVAcrisis,1966
The rise of Marshall’s Orbital Workshop in 1965/66 eclipsedLangley’sMannedOrbitingResearchLaboratory asNASA’smostlikelyinterimspacestation.Thatmaybe
thereason whyEnvironmentalResearchAssociates’con- tractwith Langleyappearedtobeabouttorunout.Sam Mattingly’sattemptstoadvertisehislittle company’sex- pertisethroughpresentationsoffilmsanddatatovarious audiencesatNASAhadfallenondeafears.Inthecaseof MSFC, it is now apparent that as it developed its own capability rather secretively,it neverconsideredseeking ERA’shelp.AsforMSC,untilJune1966, theattitudeof key personnelinHoustonwas dismissive, inMattingly’s view.Theythoughtitwastoomuchtroubleandtheyjust didnotneedit.KennethKleinknecht,thedeputymanager oftheGemini program,saidin1998 thatsome (presum- ablyintheAstronautOffice)viewedunderwatertraining as‘belowthedignityoftheastronaut.’34
TheMay4trainingplanforGeminiXthroughXII,the last three missions, confirmed that that EVA training would be carried out on the air-bearing surface, in the zero-Gairplane,andinthevacuumchambertopracticethe depressurization and pressurization procedures for the spacecraft,whichhadnoairlock.White’sEVAtheprevious yearhadgoneverywell,exceptthatcompressinghisrigid suitenoughtogetdownandclosethehatchoverhishead provedverydifficult.Buthehaddonenomeaningfulwork inspace,otherthantestingahandheldmaneuveringunit thatquicklyranoutofcompressedoxygen.Norwasany- thing known at the time, due to Soviet secrecy, of the serious crisis Alexei Leonov experiencedin March 1965, tryingtore-enterandturnaroundintheVoskhod’sinflat- ableairlock.Leonovhadtobleeddownhissuitpressure, riskingthebends,inordertomakethisspacesuitflexible enoughtogetbackinandwascompletelyexhaustedbythe effort. But toallappearances, hisexperience was as eu- phoric as White’s. And no one had ventured out since, becauseDavidScott’splannedspacewalkonGeminiVIII inMarch1966neverhappenedduetoanemergencyreturn toEarth.35
EverythingwastochangeafterEugeneCernan’snear- fatal GeminiIX experience on5 June 1966. He hadan ambitiousplantogotothebackofthespacecraft,donan AstronautManeuveringUnit(AMU)developedbytheAir Forceandthenflyfree, usingitsrocketthrusterstotest maneuverability.Becauseofthehotjets,hissuithadextra layers of insulation that made it even stiffer. But he quickly became seriously overheated by the enormous effortittooktofightthesuitandgethimselfintoposition.
Lacking adequate handholds and footholds, Newton’s third lawofmotionquickly madeitselfapparent. Every action,whetheritwastoturnavalve,ordeploythearmsof theAMU,producedanequalandoppositionreaction–his body wouldgo the otherway.He quickly overtaxedthe cooling capacityof the Geminisuit, whichrelied onthe recirculationoftheoxygenaroundhisbodyandhead.His visorfoggedoverandsweatranintohiseyes,withnoway forhimtodoanythingaboutit.Hiscommander,Thomas Stafford, agreedthathe hadto get backin. Thatagain proved enormously difficult, especially as Cernan was approachingthelimitofhisendurance.Ifhehadbecome incapacitated, Stafford would have to throw him over- boardinordertoclosethehatchandmakeitpossibleto get back to Earth. Whenthey had finally succeeded in repressurizingandCernanopenedhisfaceplate,hewasso
Figure4.Adiver,likelyCharlieCooper,holdingaS-IVBpropellantutilizationvalve atNASAMarshallSpaceFlightCenter’s8-footexplosive-formingtank,November 1965.
CourtesyofNASAMSFC.
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overheated thathelookedredasaboiledlobster.While someinHouston,includingastronautcolleagues,feltthat Cernanhadjustbotchedthe EVA,manybegantograsp thatdoingusefulworkoutsidemightbealotharderthan anticipated. Apparently EVA was not well understood afterall.36
Ten days afterCernan’swalk,on15June, Mattingly and Loats staged a pre-planned demonstration for a dozen representativesfromNASAandIBM,anattempt to scare up new business as the Langley contract was about to end. Knowing that removing the S-IVB dome hatchandattachingaflexiblebootfromtheairlocktothe opening wasa critical taskforthe Workshop, ERAhad built amockupof thearea based onpicturesina trade magazine. There were seventy-two bolts holding the hatch covertothe propellanttank,and thediversdem- onstratedhowdifficult itwastoremove them.The four Marshallrepresentatives,includingCharlieCooper,how- ever dismissedthe testasinaccurate,according toMat- tingly.‘Youdon’tknowwhatthehellyou’redoing’ishis summaryoftheirreaction.ButfortunatelyforERA,Don JacobsofMSC,motivatedbyCernan’snear-disaster,saw theirexperienceasmoreusefulandarrangedtotransfer funding to Langley for an extension on their contract.
Their first job would be tasks scheduled for Michael Collins’sEVAsonGeminiXinlateJuly,notablyattach- ingthehoseofahandheld-maneuveringguntoaconnec- toronthespacecraftexteriorthatwouldsupplynitrogen gas. Jacobs quickly shipped a mockup of parts of the Geminispacecraft toBaltimore.37
Thus began by far the most intense period of ERA’s neutral buoyancy experiments.Thesummer1966 school break allowed the company to take the pool for longer periods of time. On 30 June-1 July, with the mockup andArrowheadsuits,theERAdiverssimulatedtheGemi- ni X hose attachment, which ‘showed that the task was doablebutwouldrequirethreehandstocompletewithout incident’ (Mattingly).The resultsand films were passed along tothecrew, JohnYoungandMichaelCollins, but, pressedfortimetopreparefortheirlaunchon18July,they dismissedthisinformationasobvious.38
Jacobs, however,immediatelydelivered amoreelabo- ratemockup oftheadapter sectionof theGemini space- craft,withAMU,toevaluatetheGeminiIXEVA.Cernan visited on the11th, the first astronautto appear at the McDonoghpool.Thenoronthenextvisit,hewasindoctri- nated inthe critical safetyprocedures that thecompany had developed.MattinglyandLoats insisted that every- one,includingastronauts,whosuddenlybeganappearing with someregularity,watchademonstrationbyasuited diverbeforetheydidanything.Mattinglytoldthem:‘‘This iswhatweexpectyoutodo.Ifyou’regoingtodosomething else,you’dbetteradviseusinadvance,becauseifwedon’t like it,we’regoingtohaulyou outofthepool.’Andthey believedme, andwe wouldhave,too,because wewerea littletenseatthetime.’39
On28–29July,Cernan returnedtodo asimulationof theAMU-donningtaskinhisownGeminiG4Cspacesuit, observingondayoneanddoingithimselffourtimesonday two. Mattingly noted a distinct change in his behavior beforeandaftertheexercise:
[A]t least half of NASA thought that Cernan had screwed up because he was a poor astronaut, and Cernan knewthat.So whenhecamein, hewasas tightasadrum,anditwasobvioustous,becausewe thoughtsotoo.Sohewatched–IthinkitwasBruce [Tharp]inthewater,andhewasveryattentive,and whenhegotoutofthewater,itwaslikeanentirely differentperson.Hisattitude,hispersonality,every- thingchangedsuddenly.
Harry[Loats]andIhadhimupinthestands,andwe said,‘Firstquestionwe’ve gottoaskyou,howdoes thiscomparewith orbit?’
Andhesaid,‘It’satleast75percentaccurate.’Iloved it.
CernanflewbacktoHoustonandimmediatelyreportedthe results,whichwerenotedina1Augustmemorandum.40 A week earlier, MSC Director Robert Gilruthhad al- readymadethewatersheddecisionforhiscenter,however.
On25July hewrotetoDeke Slayton,headofthe Flight CrewOperationsDivision:
Ihavegivenagreatdealofthoughtrecentlytothe subjectofhowbest tosimulateandtrainforextra- vehicularactivitiesandhavereachedtheconclusion that both zero ‘g’ trajectories in the KC-135 and underwatersimulationsshouldhaveadefiniteplace inourtrainingprograms.
Theaircraftwasbettersuitedforrapidmovements,while the neutral buoyancy was ‘far better for the study of positioning,handholds,andtheinitiationandtermination ofallmovementsbetweenpoints.’HedirectedSlaytonto send astronauts to ERA, probably including the three spacewalkersWhite, CernanandCollins, ‘togetabetter evaluation of the techniques involved’ and to do some evaluations for the EVAs scheduled for Gemini XI and XII.Gilruth,moreover,directedthatFlightCrewSupport Division(responsible fortraining)‘shouldproceedimme- diatelytodevelopanunderwatersimulator.Ihavesome specificideasonhowthisistobedone....’41
WhatshapedGilruth’sdecision?Heclearlyhadtalked topeoplewhohadbeentoBaltimore.Moreover,GeminiX had splashed down four days prior to the memo, and Collinshadhadsomedifficultieswithcontrollinghisbody positioning andcompletinghistasks, ifnot as severeas Cernan’s, because his objectives were simpler. We also know that General Electric hadrecently briefed Gilruth and‘associates’abouttheirneutralbuoyancywork.With noknowledgeoftheMSCDirector’sdecision,onthe29th, A.W.RobinsonofGEwrotethankinghimforlisteningto thebriefingandofferingthecompany’sfacilitiesandser- vicestotrainthe GeminiXIandXII astronauts.Gilruth politely turned him down several weeks later, as the astronautshadlittletimeandMSChadalreadycommitted toERA.OnecanpresumethattheDirectorhadpreviously talked to his staff about the tradeoffs between air- and water-pressurizedspacesuits,andhadchosentheformer becauseitwasasuperiorsimulationofspaceflightcondi- tions,butthereisnoevidence.Inanycase,MSCalready
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hadaconvenientcontractarrangementwithERAandwas getting good results. Gilruth did promise that Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter, who would be advising him onthe creation ofa Houston tankand whohadalready been in ‘direct correspondence’ with GE, would visit its facilities‘inthelatterpartofSeptember.’42
Asanastronaut,Carpenterwasinanunusualposition.
Althoughworld-famousasoneoftheMercurySeven,hewas controversialatMSCbecauseofwhatmanythoughtwere seriousmistakesduringhisMay1962three-orbitMercury flight.Heprobablyneverwouldhavegottenanotherspace- flight,butinjuriessustainedina1964motorbikecrashthen ruledhimoutofflightstatusanyway.ANavyofficerand highlyexperiencedscubadiver,Carpenterhadtakentwo leavesofabsencetodevotehimselftounderseaexploration duringhisservice’sSealabandSealabIImissions.Backin Houstonfromlivingamonthunderwaterinlate1965,he becameanExecutiveAssistanttoGilruth.Hewasthusa naturalchoicetoadvisethelatterontheimplementationof neutralbuoyancytrainingafterGilruth’sdecision.Survey- ingallcompaniesdoingsuchworkseemstohavebeenpartof Carpenter’sjob.InadditiontobeingatGE,heapparently hadcomedirectlyfromConvair/GeneralDynamicswhenhe arrivedinBaltimoreinmid-October.43
Meanwhile,on10AugustERAdiversintheMcDonogh pool,wearingrecentlysuppliedGeminiG2Csuits,carried out simulations of the EVA tasks assigned to Richard GordononGeminiXI,scheduledformid-September.The Geminiprogram’shecticpacepreventedGordonfromtak- ingpart,however,aswasthecaseforCollins.NASAwasin arushtocomplete Geminibeforetheendoftheyear,so thatitcouldmoveontoApolloandthelooming,end-of-the- decade Moon-landing goal. Films and information were againsenttothecrew,butitdidnothelp,becauseGordon hadnosecurehandholdsorfootholdsinhisprimarytask, attaching a tether between the Agena docking vehicle and the Gemini spacecraft. He became overheated and exhausted, forcing an early end before any ERA recom- mendationsforrevisedprocedurescouldbecarriedout.It wasanexperiencealmostasworryingasCernan’s.44
FortunatelytherewasenoughtimetotrainBuzzAldrin forGeminiXII,withaplannedlaunchinmid-November.
AccordingtoSamMattingly,theGeminiprogrammanag- er,CharlesMathews,hadtointervenewithGilruthtoget AldrinsenttoBaltimoreovertheresistanceoftheAstro- nautOffice.Suchtrainingseemedurgent,asAldrinwasto repeat the experiment to fly the Air Force’s Astronaut ManeuveringUnit.Handholds,footholdsandprocedures wereimproved overGeminiIX. ERAcarriedout its first simulationon23AugustandAldrinappearedon12Sep- tember,GeminiXI’slaunchday.Trainingwasinterrupted sohecouldwatchtheliftoffonapool-sideTV.Apparently alldidnotgoperfectlywiththeexercise,astwodayslater ERA personnel tested some further revisions to proce- dures. But it was all for naught, as NASA’s leadership decidedinlateSeptembertocanceltheAMUastooprob- lematic, especially in view of Richard Gordon’s recent difficulties.WithonlyoneGeminimissionleft,itseemed politicallyandprogrammaticallymoreimportanttoprove thatNASAhadEVAinhandthanitwastomaketheAir Forcehappy(Figure5).45
Aldrin was angry aboutlosing theAMU, as the ERA men found out at the next training sessions on 16–17 October.Instead,hewasgivenataskboardwithvarious exercisesliketurningascrewwith apower tool,opening andclosingVelcropatches,andsoforth.Whiletrainingin thepoolonedaywithCernan,hisbackupforGeminiXII,
I let out a high-pitched staccato screech. When a startled Gene Cernan looked up and asked what was wrong, Iglared athimandsaid, ‘Shutupand passmeabanana.’ThejokespreadandwheneverI wasbackinHouston,partiesunknowntomekepta supplyofbananasinmyoffice.
Aldrin felt that the tasks were so simplified that the monkey he gave his wife could do it. But he was very focused onmastering them andhewas a naturalin the water,accordingtoBruceTharp.46
Aldrinreturnedon29October torunafullsimulation withhiscommander,JamesLovell,whostayedoutofthe poolbutcommunicatedwithhimviaradioastheyfollowed theflight plan.Thehead ofthehumanspace programat Headquarters, George Mueller, observed from a diving board.WhenGeminiXIIflewinNovember,Aldrincomplet- edallEVAtasksasplanned.Hedemonstratedthatthenew, slow, deliberate manner ofwalkingin space,with ample tethers,handrails,handholdsandfootholds,andprocedures practicedunderwater,haddefeatedthezero-Gmonster.47
Even as GeminiXII trainingintensified, Houston en- gaged both ERA and Marshall Space Flight Center in neutral buoyancy studiesof the challengespresented by the Apollo Applications Program, especially the Orbital Workshop.NodoubtasadirectresultofGilruth’s25July order,AlanBean,freshoffassignmentasGeminiXbackup commander and responsible for AAP in the Astronaut Office, went to Huntsville on 6–7 September. He spent two hoursinthe Marshall25-foottank inan Arrowhead suitevaluatingOrbitalWorkshopactivities.Amongother things, he had removed ‘bolts from a simulated S-IVB hatchcover.’TheMSFCstaffwereveryexcitedbyBean’s knowledgeandattentivenesstodetail.InhisWeeklyNote tovonBraun,WernerKuersstated:
Figure5.BuzzAldrintrainingforGeminiXIIintheMcDonoghpool,fall1966.
CourtesyofSamMattingly.
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Lt. Commander Bean was quite enthusiastic and outspoken about neutral buoyancy as one of the mandatory methods of simulations for all the S- IVB Workshop experiments.In addition,heappar- ently hadbeentold ofourplansregardingthenew large neutral buoyancy type simulator, and in re- sponsetohispointblankquestionsregardingthis,he wascandidlyshownthedesignblueprintsbyrespon- sible ME [Manufacturing Engineering] personnel.
Consequently, Houstonis nowaware.[Underlining inoriginal]
ThisthefirstmentiondiscoveredsofarofMarshall’splan for apermanent facility,one that wouldbe finishedtwo yearslater.48
Bean subsequently visited ERA in Maryland in mid- NovembertoseetheWorkshopsimulationsgoingonthere.
Houston had given ERA a second contract, finalized on 30 September, toevaluatethe Orbital Workshopairlock and dome hatch-cover problem. Work on that began on 4October,andMercuryastronautScottCarpenterarrived onthetwelfth.AfterhewatchedBruceTharptakeoffthree boltsinthirtyminutes,accordingtoSamMattingly,Car- penterwasonlyabletogetoneoutorpartlyout,becausehe lacked the experience thatthe seasoned ERAdiver had.
TheMercuryastronautwroteshortlyafterward:‘Tryingto loosen72boltsfloatingunderwaterandwearingaweight- ed,pressurizedspacesuitturnsouttobeanearlyimpos- sible job.IwassurprisedtofindIhadasmuchdifficulty doing such simple tasksas other astronauts had during their space walks.’ The preliminary conclusionfrom the ERAstudywasthatitwouldtaketwoastronautssixhours togetalltheboltsoff,iftheyusedapowertoolandaright- angle drive,buteventhatestimateseemsoptimistic.49
The demonstrationofhowdifficult that taskwas ina pressuresuitinsimulatedweightlessnesshadanimmedi- ateeffectonHuntsville’sdesign.Ata14Octobermeeting therebetweenrepresentativesofMSFCandMSC,‘agree- mentwasreached...regardingtheevaluationofthethree proposeddesignsforaquick-openinghatchfortheS-IVB hydrogentank.’ThemeetingcameaboutbecauseHouston hadalreadyorderedairlockmockupsforneutralbuoyancy trainingfromcontractorMcDonnellAircraftandwasabout toorderanotherfromMarshallforitsowntank.Whether CarpentervisitedHuntsvilleisunknown,butseemslikely.
Alittleoverayearlater,vonBraungavehimtheprimary credit for raising NASA’s consciousness about neutral buoyancy.50
Consolidatingtheneutralbuoyancytechnological systematNASA
TheintenseandexcitingdaysattheMcDonoghSchoolin fall 1966, which required significant concessions by the headmaster,weredestinedtocometoanend.Tokeepthe operationgoingandtocompletewhatSamMattinglysaw asthecapstonedemonstrationofneutralbuoyancy’svalue, hesoldHoustononafinalevaluationofGeminiXII.Asan additiontotheairlockcontract,Aldrinreturned toBalti- moreon2Decembertorunthroughallhisrecentorbital activities in order to make systematic comparisons. He confirmedthatneutralbuoyancyprovidedaclosefacsimile
ofmanyaspectsofactualEVA.ButwithLangleynolonger providingmoney,Geminiover,Houstonbuildingits own tank,andHuntsvillealreadyoperatingaprovisionalsys- tem, ERA’s days as a training facility for astronauts appeared to be numbered. Although it did get a loan of an early Apollo development suit, the only contracts it receivedfor neutral buoyancy thereafterwere foradvice andassistancetoMSCinbuildingitsfacilityin1967.The ApollofireattheendofJanuary1967,whichkilledthree astronauts(includingEdwardWhite)inalaunch-padtest, wasanotherblow.Newstringentsafetyregulations,which Mattinglythoughtwere unnecessary,requiredthat ERA maintainadecompressionchamberandmedicalhelpon- callincaseofadivingaccident.Thecompanyhadtofind anotherpooltoworkinandboughtachamberatgovern- mentexpense,butneveruseditanddidlittlenewneutral buoyancywork.ERAcarriedoutsmallexperimentalcon- tractsforNASAandothergovernmentagenciesuntilthe early seventies, when Sam Mattingly and Harry Loats decidedtoendthepartnershipandseekother jobs.51
AsfortheHoustonfacility,itprovedhardertostartup thanoriginallyanticipated. ‘It’sjustatankofwater’was thedismissiveorironicsummaryofneutralbuoyancythat Mattinglyranintoatthetime.Itscomplexitywaseasyto underestimate. Immediately after Gilruth’s order, MSC officialsexpected its facility could put it inoperation by theendof1966.52Thatwasthoughtfeasiblebecauseitonly involvedmovingtheformerwateregresstrainingtankat EllingtonAirForceBasetoBuilding5atMSCandequip- pingit forunderwater work. But external viewingports wereadded,aswasadecompressionchamberontheshelf attheedgeofthetank,aladder,ahoist,lighting,heating andsoforth.Trainedscubapersonnelwerecritical.Asof 13February1967,therewereonlytwoavailable,although sixwererequiredforoperations.TheAstronautOfficealso decidedthatallastronautsneededscubatrainingaswell, if not already expert. As a result of all the necessary changes and training, the tank, first called the Water Immersion Facility (WIF), only came into operation in June, and after more fixes, was approved for regular operation on 1 August by a board that included Scott Carpenter. Much of its work concerned Apollo training forlunarmissions,butitincludedsomeAAPtasks.53
Meanwhile,Huntsvillewasalreadyworkinginitstwo metal-formingtanks,buttheverylargeNeutralBuoyancy Simulator(NBS)tooktwomoreyearstobuild.Apparently planswentbacktothebeginningof1966,whenthe25-foot tank was being refitted, but a year later Werner Kuers complainedthatnoprogresshadbeenmadeontheNBS.
EventuallyWernhervonBraun foundthe moneytocon- structitasa‘tool’–effectivelyhidingitfromHeadquarters –becausecallingita‘facility’wouldmeanitwouldhaveto go through a centralized process that could take years (Figure 6). At 75ft (23m) in diameter and 40ft (12m) deep,thishuge,cylindricaltankcouldholdmockupsofthe fulldiameteroftheS-IVBWorkshop.Oneuniqueaspectof theNBSwasa‘safehaven’chamberatthebottom,towhich spacesuitedtraineescould retreatincaseofsuitfailures duringextendedunderwatersessions,ratherthanrisking decompression sickness during emergency ascents from depths greater than 33ft (10m). Completed by the end
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of1968andrevealedtothepublicinearly1969,theNBS provokedgovernmentinvestigatorstothreatenMarshall managerswithjail,althoughvonBraun’scentereventual- lygotawaywithapaperreprimand.It provedcriticalto completingthedesignworkandtrainingfor,andinflight repairof,theSkylabstationlaunchedin1973.54
AsNASAconsolidateditstrainingatthetwofacilities, theaerospacecrashofthelatesixtiesandearlyseventies killed off the remaining corporate neutral buoyancy work. Boeing had already mothballed its facility in 1967. As for Convair/General Dynamics and Garrett AiResearch, there is no sign they operated after the sixties. At General Electric, the cancelation of Manned OrbitingLaboratoryinJune1969wasthedeathblowfor its underwater work in the Philadelphia area and the VirginsIslands.The NixonAdministrationdecided that unmanned reconnaissance satellites were a better in- vestment, killing the last exclusively military human space program. Soon thereafter President Nixon (with fullcollaborationbyaCongresscontrolledbyDemocrats) curtailedtheSaturn/Apolloprogram,endedallplansfor spacestationsafterSkylab,squashedtalkofMoonbases and Mars expeditions, and limited the NASA human program to a Space Shuttle, shared with the military, that could not fly before the late seventies (actually 1981). That both the Huntsville and Houston neutral buoyancyfacilities survivedthe lean seventiescanonly have been because they were relatively cheap, and Huntsville’slargetankhaduniquevaluefortheShuttle program, like training to work with the Hubble Space
Telescope. But Charlie Cooper retains a certain bitter- nessatwhatheclaimsweremultipleattemptsbyJohn- son(asitwascalledafter1973)tokillMarshall’sfacility off.ItfinallyhappenedwhenthegiganticNeutralBuoy- ancyLaboratory openedin 1997.55
Thishistoricrivalryandsizedifferencesaside,thetwo centers hadeffectively co-inventedthe neutral buoyancy technologicalsystem,asthecorporateactivityhadsolittle legacy. Bothusedgas-(asopposedtowater-)pressurized suits,scuba-equippedsafetydivers,speciallymodifiedfilm equipment,andheated andwell-lit watertankswithfil- tering systemstoretainclarity.Similar,well-entrenched safetycultureswereneededtoprotecttheastronautsand divers from danger. Both arose as local initiatives from below,Houston’sfromTrout,MattinglyandLoats’workat LangleyandERA,andHuntsville’sfromthescubaexperi- ments of Cooper and Stokes. Indeed, it is striking how muchscubadiving,ahobbythatmushroomedinthe1950s afterCousteauandGagnaninventedtheAqualung,wasan enablingtechnologyforneutralbuoyancy.Thelowtechno- logicalbarrierstoentry–alittlescubaexperience(which MattinglyandLoatshiredbygoingtothelocaldiveshop), accesstofull-pressuresuits,swimmingpoolsortanks,and simplemockupsthatcouldbebuiltin-house–meantthatit was possiblefor asmallgovernmentdivision,or asmall companylikeEnvironmentalResearchAssociates,tocom- petewithgiantaerospacecorporationsinthedevelopment ofneutralbuoyancy.Thatthistrainingmethodwasunan- ticipatedordismissedasunnecessaryalsofavoredinnova- tive, smallgroups empiricallyassembling asystemfrom below,ratherthanalargeorganizationorderingdevelop- mentfromabove.
Neutral buoyancy was also clearly contingent in its origin, asindividual initiativeandluck hadmuchtodo withwhythe twoNASAgroupssucceededwhereothers reached a dead-end. If ERA’s last-ditch demonstration hadnottakenplacetendaysafterCernan’snearlydisas- trousEVA,andthecompanyhadgoneoutofbusinessin 1966, Houston might have had to seek expertise else- where, with unknown effects on training for the last Geminimissions.AndgiventheturfbattlebetweenHous- ton and Huntsville, and the quasi-legal way Marshall fundedthe NBS,itwasalwayspossiblethatHeadquar- terswouldhavenippedHuntsville’sindependentgroupin thebud.Perhapsoneofthecorporationswouldhavefound asustainableNASAcontractintheirplace. Suchspecu- lationquicklyrunsaground,butitservestodemonstrate thattheway the neutralbuoyancytechnologicalsystem was assembled was ‘socially constructed’ and far from inevitable.However,theultimateconvergenceonnearly identicaltechnologicalcharacteristicsallovertheworld, basedonNASA’sexample,indicatesthatthereprobablyis one superior technological solution for simulating on Earth the characteristics of extended spacewalking – the how was not, at least in gross terms, socially con- structed,butgroundedratherinphysicalreality.Weare arguingherefor whatsomehave called‘soft’socialcon- structionism.56Thus,the storyofhowneutralbuoyancy training wasinvented, or assembled, is instructive,not only for space historians andpractitioners, but also for historiansoftechnology.
Figure6.Wernher vonBraun ina Mark IV Arrowheadspacesuit, justbefore enteringtheinterim25-foottankatNASAMarshall,November1967.
CourtesyofNASAMSFC.
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