NE North Dakota News

The University of North Dakota (UND) is moving forward with the construction of a neutral buoyancy facility beneath the Altru Sports Complex’s new Olympic-sized pool. The 13-foot-deep, 18-by-34-foot chamber will enable researchers, students, and astronauts-in-training to simulate weightlessness and conduct various space-related experiments underwater.

Pablo de Leon, professor and chair of UND’s Department of Space Studies, described the project as a long-term goal for the university. “In 1990, I started doing underwater extravehicular training with space suits in Huntsville, Ala.,” de Leon said. “I came to UND in 2004, and since then, I have been an advocate of having our own underwater training facility.

“So, this feels like a dream come true after these many years. The planets had to align for this to happen, and this includes all the organizations that were involved in this project.”

The new facility will support not only local research but also attract national and international collaborators seeking to use an environment similar to space without leaving Earth. It was designed by UND experts to prioritize safety and versatility.

Keith Crisman, assistant professor of Space Studies at UND and certified rescue diver, contributed to the design. He noted the similarities between working in a spacesuit and being underwater. “The correlations between being in a space suit and being underwater are so close to each other,” he said.

Crisman explained that adjusting weights on divers allows simulation of different gravity levels: “By changing the amount of weight that we put on the person, we can go from a neutral buoyancy situation — zero G — to one-fifth G for lunar operations and one-third G for Martian operations,” he said.

Panels will cover the chamber when it is not in use; inflatable airbags will be used to lift them off when needed. Crisman emphasized their focus on simplicity: “We kept asking, how can we make this safe, but operable by just a couple of divers? The answer was to keep it simple.”

The depth was carefully chosen at less than 20 feet for safety reasons related to nitrogen buildup during prolonged submersion. “We wanted less than 30 feet for the risk. Because, again, after 30 feet, we start to worry about nitrogen build up in the body’s tissues,” Crisman said. “We wanted hours of time underwater, not just 20 minutes or 30 minutes.”

Safety protocols include requiring safety divers present during operations and an overhead hoist system for emergencies.

The facility is expected to expand research opportunities at UND. Crisman is collaborating with UND’s BiPed Lab on motion tracking studies in submerged environments using sensor-based systems instead of cameras.

“We’re looking at ways to use motion capture in an underwater environment, which is something that I don’t think anybody has done,” Crisman said. “Instead of using cameras, we’re working with sensors that track movement directly. It’ll help us see how the body moves when neutrally buoyant, and how that compares to Martian or lunar gravity, versus just running virtual models.”

De Leon anticipates that equipment testing — sometimes for NASA or private companies — as well as extravehicular activity training will become key functions of the lab. He sees strategic value for UND: “We will not only do equipment testing — sometimes for NASA, sometimes for private companies or for other universities — but also extravehicular activities training will be an important capability we will be acquiring,” de Leon said. “We will be able to provide courses on how to perform operations in open space, and this will be a strategic asset for the university.”

He added that while UND has developed spacesuits before with NASA collaboration on advanced projects, until now there has been no way to test them under simulated weightless conditions: “At UND we build the spacesuits, we work with NASA on a variety of projects related to advanced spacesuits,” he said. “But, the thing that we’ve never had was the ability to test the suits in this neutral buoyancy environment.”