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Swimming Lessons
Astronauts had to swim before they could walk.
By Rebecca Maksel
airspacemag.com, August 11, 2009
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Although underwater training for extravehicular activity—spacewalks—is now the norm, NASA started out using aircraft to simulate weightlessness. Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers were used for this purpose, along with Convair C-131 Samaritans. The basic technique is the same today as it was then: The airplane makes a series of steep, roller-coaster-like climbs and dives, producing about 30 seconds of weightlessness at the top of each arc. These maneuvers frequently provoked airsickness, which led to the aircraft being nicknamed the “Vomit Comet.”
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This is a great photo, in part because it documents a little appreciated facet of the Skylab program. Before it was Skylab, it was AAP--the Apollo Applications Program. To gain support, NASA offered to fly some military technology experiments on the Orbital Workshop. One is shown in this photo: the inflatable airlock developed by the US Air Force (that roundish white object to the right of the Apollo Telescope Mount). The USAF wanted to evaluate an inflatable, collapsible airlock for use in its future space vehicles. What I didn't realize was that the Air Force inflatable airlock was still (apparently) in evaluation as late as November 1970, when this photo was taken. Recall also that Alexei Leonov made humanity's first space walk through an inflatable airlock, but (as far as I know) none have ever been used since then.
Posted by John Charles on August 28,2009 | 10:36AM