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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.