The Coolest Job I Ever Had

“Every time I’ve gone scuba diving, I’ve found a sunken ship – a sunken spaceship.”
– Ron Rowland

This quote sounds like a total fabrication, complete bull, or the rantings of a mad man.  However, it is absolutely true – let me tell you about the coolest job I ever had.

How It Came To Be

It was 1975, and I had the privilege of being employed by NASA at its Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama.  MSFC is not as well known as many other NASA facilities such as the Johnson Space Center (Houston Mission Control), Cape Canaveral, and the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL).  However, it is the largest of all NASA installations and the home of its rocket development efforts – it is where the real rocket science takes place.

I was working in Building 4708, known as the high-bay building, and home to the Saturn V rocket breadboard used for development, verification, and troubleshooting for the Apollo program.  About 50 yards away was Building 4706, home of the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator – where astronauts trained to operate in the weightlessness of space. 

The Apollo program was in its final days, Space Shuttle was coming soon, and with it, the need to put many more people through the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator training.  Higher throughput meant they would have to accelerate the training.  To meet this challenge, the instructors revised the curriculum. 

NASA does not do anything without testing it first.  They were not going to put future astronauts through a new accelerated training school without verifying it.  So they went looking for a guinea pig (er…I mean student), and they found a candidate in a nearby building – me.  When asked if I would be interested, I did not hesitate.  When the opportunity of a lifetime comes along, one needs to seize it immediately.

astronaut training
in the right place at right time
yes, I volunteered

Free Dive to 40 Feet

The Neutral Buoyancy Simulator is actually an elaborate above-ground swimming pool (see detailed cutaway image below).  It is 40 feet deep, 75 feet across, and holds 1.3 million gallons of water – large enough to hold a spaceship.  The operations platform on the top deck has a hyperbaric chamber, an array of video monitors and recording equipment, and a multi-ton hoist for adding and removing objects (spacecraft) from the tank.  The NBS also has observation platforms at multiple levels and ground-level air locks, providing for bottom-of-the-pool entry and exit.

Thirty-three feet under water is about equal to one atmosphere of pressure.  Therefore, when you are 33 feet below the surface, you are essentially experiencing a weightless environment.  This is the basic operating concept of the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator.  

NASA put me through its “new and accelerated” (and experimental) scuba school training course – classroom style. Before I was allowed to enter the water with scuba gear, I had to demonstrate an ability to free-dive all 40 feet to the bottom of the pool.  A daunting task in my mind, and I only got about 20 feet down in my first attempt.  When I reached that depth, it felt like my chest and lungs were collapsing, which quickly forced me back to the surface.

My second attempt met with a similar fate.  Free diving with a single breath of air and the sensation of a sumo wrestler sitting your chest, tends to activate your survival instincts.  When they kick in, it is amazing how fast you can reach the surface.

My instructor was Don “Neptune” Hammer.  If you ever met Don, his white hair, beard, and love of the water, would make it clear why his nickname was Neptune.  Witnessing my first two aborted attempts, Don stepped in and provided valuable coaching.  First, he reminded me that my lungs would not collapse.  Next, he told me to take as large a breath as possible, over-inflating my lungs.  Third, he removed his badge, dropped it in the water, and we watched it slowly flutter 40 feet down to the bottom.  Then he turned to me and said, “I need you to retrieve my badge.”

On my very next attempt, I made it all the way to the bottom of the 40-foot pool and picked up his badge.  Then, an eerie calmness overcame me.  I no longer noticed the compression on my chest. I felt serene and comfortable, and believed I could have stayed down there much longer on that single breathe of air.  My instructor, who was in full scuba gear, noticed my eyeballs bulging out and made a motion for me to equalize the pressure in my mask. He then signaled me to return to the surface.

forty-foot free dive
eerie calm envelops me
rapture of the deep?

I learned many things that day, including the fact that I was capable of accomplishing things I thought were far beyond my abilities.  However, the lesson that really stuck with me, and was useful throughout my life, was the importance of setting goals.  With the simple act of dropping his badge and asking me to retrieve it, Don was establishing a specific goal and providing the motivation required to accomplish the task at hand.

Doff and Don on Skylab

Having passed the 40-foot free-dive prerequisite, it was time to experience actual scuba diving.  At that time, the NBS contained a full-scale mockup of the major Skylab components.  Skylab was NASA’s first space station, about 22 feet in diameter, and was constructed from the third stage shell of a Saturn V rocket.  I would be scuba diving with a spacecraft.

In scuba school, one of the first tasks is demonstrating the ability to “doff and don” the scuba equipment.  The NBS had a series of large platforms at various intervals below the surface, one of which this exercise traditionally used, but my instructor had a different idea.

Instead of using the diving platform, Don had me dive down to the top surface of Skylab, which was about 15 feet under water.  Once there, I had to remove (“doff”) my air tank, mask, and fins.  As soon as I removed everything, I returned to the surface, and treaded water.  The next step, you guessed it, was to swim back down to Skylab and put everything back on (“don”).  When donning scuba gear underwater, the first step is clearing the regulator.  Once you have air to breathe, there is plenty of time for everything else.

Skylab doff and don
hard to imagine it real
Neptune as my guide

NASA’s Pool Boy

Armed with this basic knowledge of scuba diving, the NASA team put me to work.  Sediment forms at the bottom of any tank that large, and despite its state-of-the-art filtration system, the Neutral Buoyance Simulator was no exception.  My new “job” was vacuuming the bottom of this 1.3 million gallon pool every few days.  In essence, I became NASA’s pool boy. 

These sessions typically lasted about 30 minutes, easily accomplished with a single tank of air, and I quickly fell into a routine.  However, one day, the team only put enough air in the scuba tank to last about five minutes.  It was not a prank.  It was a test to see how I would react to running out of air at a 40-foot depth.

I was comfortably standing on the bottom of the pool and performing the vacuuming chores.  Suddenly, it became difficult to breathe. I recognized this sensation as a sign that my air tank was running low.  I was 40 feet below the surface and running out of air.  What was I to do?  My training kicked in, and I calmly dropped the pool vacuum and performed a free ascent to the surface, remembering to let the compressed air escape from my lungs while doing so.

This test might seem like a dangerous situation for someone who was only 19 years old at the time.  However, every time I entered the NBS, my instructor and two safety divers accompanied me.  I can imagine the three of them hovering close behind me, but out of my sight that day.  Additionally, there was a minimum of two technicians monitoring the instruments and video feeds at the surface console.  Every time I entered the water of the NBS, there were at least five other people looking after my safety.  NASA sure knew how to make me feel important.

neutral buoyancy
where NASA astronauts train
weightlessness of space

I Never Went Scuba Diving Again

Don Hammer, my instructor, provided a letter that outlined the training I had received and stated all I needed was an open-water checkout to become a certified scuba diver.  Although I would have liked to have earned certification, the right opportunity to go scuba diving again never presented itself.  To this day, every time I have been scuba diving, it has been in the NBS, where I always found a sunken spaceship. 

Yes, I was a human guinea pig for NASA, and it was the coolest job I ever had!

diving with spaceships
coolest job I ever had
NASA guinea pig

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Frequently Asked Questions:

• Did you ever get to wear a space suit in the NBS?  No.  I was told they didn’t make them in my size (6’4”).
• Did you meet any astronauts while working at NASA?  Not to my knowledge.  However, Neil Armstrong was an aerospace engineering professor at my school (University of Cincinnati) at the time, which probably helped me get the job at NASA.
• Are you in any of these pictures?  No. However, I believe NASA videotaped most of my training, so there may be some footage buried deep in the archives.

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Featured Image: Neutral Buoyancy Simulator – International Space Station power module tests. NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center (1995). Astronaut Joe Lindquist and Kate Rupley conduct underwater testing on the International Space Station’s power module in Marshall’s Neutral Buoyancy Simulator (NBS).

Additional Images

Neutral Buoyancy Simulator Cutaway View from the NASA collection: Around Marshall (1972), with additional components identified by Ron Rowland (2021). This is a cutaway illustration of the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator (NBS) at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC ). The MSFC NBS provided an excellent environment for testing hardware to examine how it would operate in space and for evaluating techniques for space construction and spacecraft servicing. Here, engineers, designers, and astronauts performed various tests to develop basic concepts, preliminary designs, final designs, and crew procedures.

The NBS was constructed of welded steel with polyester-resin coating. The water tank was 75-feet (22.9- meters) in diameter, 40-feet (12.2-meters) deep, and held 1.32 million gallons of water. Since it opened for operation in 1968, the NBS had supported a number of successful space missions, such as the Skylab, Solar Maximum Mission Satellite, Manned Maneuvering Unit, Experimental Assembly of Structures in Extravehicular Activity/Assembly Concept for Construction of Erectable Space Structures (EASE/ACCESS), the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Space Station. The function of the MSFC NBS was moved to the larger simulator at the Johnson Space Center and is no longer operational.

It was decommissioned in 1997 and the tank was subsequently moved to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, One Tranquility Base, Huntsville, Alabama.  I had the opportunity to see the NBS in its new home on a 2019 visit to Huntsville, where I could be seen grinning from ear to ear.

Neutral Buoyancy Simulator – Skylab Training from NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Collection (1970). Pictured here is astronaut Ed Gibson in Marshall Space Flight Center’s Neutral Buoyancy Simulator (NBS) during Skylab Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) training. This overall view shows a mockup of the Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) Transfer Work Station.  When I was in the tank (1975), the ATM portion was no longer there, just the Skylab main body (partially visible on the right).

Diving Injury Report: When I performed my first free-dive to the bottom of the tank, I was consumed with equalizing the pressure in my ears and forgot to equalize the pressure in my mask.  This resulted in a ruptured blood vessel in my eye, which remained noticeable for a few years.  Don tried to reassure me by stating, “I’ve effed-up some important people before.  I once took the #2 guy at NASA down into the tank while he was wearing a space suit and blew out his eardrums.”

In memory of Donald L “Neptune” Hammer (1922-2019). Don served in the United States Navy pacific operations during World War II. The highlight of his working career was the years he spent training astronauts at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Additional Reading & Viewing

NASA Technical Memorandum TM X-64844: Skylab, MSFC Skylab Neutral Buoyancy Simulator, August 1, 1974, 180-page pdf.

Library of Congress: Marshall Space Flight Center, Neutral Buoyancy Simulator Facility, Rideout Road, Huntsville, Madison County, AL, Photos from Survey HAER AL-129-B.

Public domain photos: 88 Nbs Images: PICRYL Public Domain Search – Collections.

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Published at ronrowland.com and linked to dVerse Poets Pub — Haibun Monday 8-30-21: Back to school, where Frank is hosting and asked to pen a haibun alluding to back to school.