English company buys land in Ohio for astronaut training facility
Blue Abyss, an English company focused on establishing “extreme environment research, test, and training centres,” has purchased twelve acres in Ohio where it plans to build an astronaut training facility.
The property, which is near Cleveland’s NASA Glenn Research Center, will include a 164-foot deep pool, microgravity center, astronaut training center, and a hotel. Brook Park Mayor Edward Orcutt described the facility as a “boot camp for astronauts.”
It appears the company is expecting there to be a lot of commercial astronauts in the coming years who will need training, and anticipates that NASA will not be capable of or interested in providing the service.
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Blue Abyss, an English company focused on establishing “extreme environment research, test, and training centres,” has purchased twelve acres in Ohio where it plans to build an astronaut training facility.
The property, which is near Cleveland’s NASA Glenn Research Center, will include a 164-foot deep pool, microgravity center, astronaut training center, and a hotel. Brook Park Mayor Edward Orcutt described the facility as a “boot camp for astronauts.”
It appears the company is expecting there to be a lot of commercial astronauts in the coming years who will need training, and anticipates that NASA will not be capable of or interested in providing the service.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Whether or not the risk of starting up this facility pays off is going to be crucially dependent upon whatever decisions SpaceX makes about procurement of training for the people who will be executing its lunar and Mars projects. If it decides on total or substantial autarky, such training facilities as this will have to scramble for what is most likely going to be quite limited non-SpaceX business for some time.
I would think that SpaceX would be smart to specialize in the skills development of a select type of astronaut that they would be uniquely qualified to bring along… the kind that don’t eat food or drink water, and don’t need toilets or spacesuits!
Oooooo! About an half hour up the road from me!
I could see it as a training base for civilian orbital space station construction. And they will need a hundred or more space construction workers for the next 10 years of work. Plus add in a small crew of on site managers and safety medics.
I just can not see NASA allowing their facilities to be used for it.
LTC SDS,
You wrote: “About an half hour up the road from me!”
Since it is in commute range, maybe you can get a job there and help to train the next generation of civilian astronauts.
_____________
pzatchok wrote: “And they will need a hundred or more space construction workers for the next 10 years of work.”
So this training facility could have work for quite some time, training ten or so astronauts each year.
Once they build rotating space stations, the astronauts may be able to routinely stay for a year, as they could rest and recreate in 1G or 1/2G sections of the station, perhaps avoiding some of the health problems associated with long stays in space.