NBL

I have friends and family who are crazy SCUBA diving fools. They love to jump into water all over the world and look at what's below the surface.

I love the sea. I love the sound of the waves crashing. I love the scent of the air near the shore. I love the freshening breeze that is a part of land meeting water. But I've never felt that connection to what happens below the water's surface. Now, don't get me wrong, I will watch an undersea special on Discovery and marvel at the [insert ocean wildlife name here] in their natural habitat and the means and personnel it took to film it. But the undersea world does not 'call to me'.

All that changed this week. I saw a body of water that I wanted to jump into and see beneath. It was all I could do not to jump in and stick my head down, open my eyes and study the goings on.

On Monday, I took a 'behind the scenes' tour of NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. This is the 40 ft deep tank where they put big chunks of space gear and then simulate a weightless environment for the astronauts to learn how to do the EV work on the outside of things. It's like a space walk, man!

Because NASA is all 'safety first', every practice run has scads of divers down to keep an eye on the astronauts and provide backup. The instructors stay up in an office overlooking the pool and communicate through the astronaut's helmets like in a real spacewalk.

Could this be any cooler? I don't think so.

We got there right in time to see them pulling two astronauts from the drink and helping them off with their space suits. It was clear across the big pool, so I didn't get very good shots, but it was a fascinating process.

Aside from seeing two astronauts in their skivvies, this was interesting to me because it truly displayed how it 'takes a village' for the astronauts to get anything done. There is no jumping into that suit all my yourself and being the Lone Ranger. It takes teamwork.

And did I mention that giant big blue pool with all the cool gear in it? You can keep your coral reefs and your endangered fish species. This is the first time I've ever contemplated learning to SCUBA dive. I wanted IN that tank. I wanted to see the big structure that allowed the astronauts to train like they were on the space station. I wanted to go down and lay my hands on the big module that is the Japanese structure on the international lab. I wanted to learn how to maneuver the payload in the shuttle bay.

That calls to me. I may never get to be an astronaut. Now that I'm 50, I think it's safe to say that I will never attain that goal personally. But if I was dive certified, maybe I could go down in that tank and dream...

--Sandee Wagner