>> Crews assigned to missions
on the International Space Station spend more
than two years training for 6 months on orbit
but NASA's always developing information to prepare
for future missions to this station
and future missions to deep space.
One of the ways that we do that is by sending crews
on long missions underwater
on what are known as NEEMO missions.
NEEMO stands for NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations
and two 2 NEEMO missions are slated for later this summer.
JAXA astronaut Aki Hoshide,
a veteran of 1 space shuttle mission
to the space station plus a 124-day flight during
expeditions 32 and 33 back in 2012, is gonna be the commander
of NEEMO 18 next month and recently my colleague,
Amiko Kauderer, talked with Aki to find out more about the plans
for his 9-day underwater mission.
>> So NEEMO 18 is coming up this July.
We have a 9-day mission underwater
in an aquarius habitat.
There's 4 crew members involved, myself,
and then 2 NASA astronauts, Jeanette Epps and Mark Vande Hei
and we have 1 more ESA astronaut, Thomas Pesquet.
>> Okay. Great, thank you.
So, tell me first what inspired you to do NEEMO
when they came to you and said Aki.
>> Well, I haven't had the opportunity
to actually stay underwater for this long.
>> Okay.
>> And, you know, it's been around as a training
for quite a while now but I just didn't have the opportunity
to stay down there so when the opportunity came, you know,
I said yeah, sign me up.
>> Great. Well, we're glad to have you.
>> Thank you.
>> So let's talk about also now NEEMO 18 is gonna adjust some
objectives that we have currently of the space station.
>> Mmhmm.
>> And also Orion and it's gonna also look at some objectives
for future space exploration.
>> That's right.
>> Can you tell me a little
about how your past space experience is going to,
fits into this, these objectives for NEEMO 18?
>> Sure. So, you know, we have different experiments,
different evaluations,
objectives during this NEEMO mission and a lot
of people are involved but for the crew it's partly training,
you know, you're in that environment for a long duration.
It's 9 days only but we consider
that significant duration underwater an extreme condition.
So, to me, that's just like an analog
to the International Space Station.
You're, you're in there together.
You're isolated from the rest of the world.
You have MCC helping you out but I can try to see what is similar
to the space station and then tell the rest of the crew
and try to help them out and understand that.
>> We talked about some of the primary objectives and 1
of the primary objectives of NEEMO is not only
for the near term and future term in space exploration
but also the things, the primary focus will be on human body-
>> Mmhmm.
>> experiments.
Can you tell me a little
about what you guys will be doing on NEEMO 18?
>> Sure. There's no blood draw this time.
>> Ooh.
>> Ooh. But there's more like the teamwork aspect.
[inaudible] You mentioned international crew
but in an isolated environment and we'll have some com delay-
>> Yeah.
>> as well built in for a couple of the days
so the teamwork will be very crucial, you know.
So, we'll be looking at how to improve the teamwork.
We have a lot of questionnaires that we need to fill out,
that kind of thing, and on a different subject we're testing
out like the heart rate monitor that we can use
for the International Space Station as well.
>> Great, yeah, so I know, well, lucky you,
you're not being pricked [laughter].
So mostly from the psychological aspect-
>> Mmhmm.
>> and working with the crew members
but then also doing some work with the heart rate monitor.
>> Correct.
>> So another 1 of those objectives is also going
to be looking at space walk tools.
>> Mmhmm.
>> And techniques.
Can you tell me a little
about how you guys will be doing that on NEEMO 18?
>> Sure. So every single day we'll be diving
and going EVA outside the--
>> Space walk.
>> habitat.
Yes, space walk.
Going out to the water, not to space,
but some of those days we'll be using a drill
so the objective is to see
if these new hardwares will be used, which we will be using
for future missions like for the asteroid or Mars,
how feasible those would be in operation.
>> Now, are these tools
that they are currently using aboard the space station?
>> No.
>> That you guys are trying
>> This is [inaudible].
>> because these are new tools-
>> absolutely new, yes.
>> for future use.
>> Yes.
>> Possibly outside space station or for other future?
>> For, yeah, for future missions.
>> Asteroid or whatever.
>> Yes. Mmhmm.
>> That's really fascinating.
So that'll be kind of cool to be able to get your hands
on something different that you haven't used before.
>> Right.
>> Also, can you tell me a little bit, we were talking
about the, you know, training.
Again, your, your mission kicks off on, what, July 21st?
>> The training will kick off on July 14th.
>> I'm sorry, your mission-
>> The mission.
>> begins on July 21st.
>> Yes, the 21st.
>> And then you're training.
So can you tell me a little about,
just compare some of the training--
>> Mmhmm.
>> for expedition versus for NEEMO 18.
>> So for an ISS mission it's, you know, a couple years long
and you go to different countries and you go,
start with an overview and then go
into the details, you use a procedure.
You have the hardware to play around with.
Now, for NEEMO missions it's very, you know, tight in a way.
We had an overview training session here at JSC
for the past couple of days but we'll fly down to Florida
and then we'll actually see the hardware, see the habitat,
see all the equipment that we're gonna use
and then we're gonna play around with it, use a procedure,
make sure that we know exactly what we need
to do and then dive in.
So it's a very condensed training process compared
to station.
>> It sounds like it.
Well, best of luck to you.
That's all the time we have.
Thank you again for coming out and talking with us
and we look forward to following you guys
and good luck out there.
>> Thank you.
>> Have fun too.
>> Thank you. ------------------------------694b7904a874--