The University of Essex now plans on constructing the world's largest and deepest space exploration pool on its Colchester campus.
As part of its plan with Blue Abyss, the university hopes the pool also gets used for astronaut training, dive training and testing new deep sea technologies, such as the university's robotic fish and remotely operated vehicles.
The Blue Abyss crowdfunding page for the pool outlines the mission of the project: to create a "state-of-the-art space" that has hyperbaric chambers, as well as diving and microgravity facilities. Plans for the pool include regions for fake shipwrecks and cave simulations. The pool's lighting can mimic both day and night.
However, the pool's potential for being used as a space environment is its bragging point, making it the first of its kind.
"A research and development facility that complements existing astronaut training centers offers huge opportunities, given the anticipated development of space tourism, for example," writes Blue Abyss on its crowdfunding page. "Ancillary courses that provide an insight into what astronauts go through would be a logical extension of the facility's wider commercial offerings."
Plans for the pool also peg it as the largest on the planet, nearly 50 meters wide, about 165 feet, and 50 meters deep at its deepest point.
So far, Blue Abyss already has people from large, well-known companies working on the project, including GMW, 3PM, Pell Frischmann and Gardiner and Theobald. NASA's Apollo Lunar Exploration Principle Investigator Walter Kuehnegger has also joined the project's team as a consultant.
European Space Agency astronaut Tim Peake also gave the project his seal of approval.
"I support Blue Abyss and see this future facility as something that does not yet exist in Europe and that would compete with, or potentially even surpass, what is available in the United States and Russia," said Peake. "In my view this will be an outstanding 'European facility'."
Blue Abyss plans on having discussions with other high-profile organizations and companies, too, to get them onboard with plans for the pool.
Blue Abyss crowdfunding mission is to raise £150,000 (about $230,000 USD) to cover costs concerned with its negotiations, as well as to finalize plans for the pool's construction and the survey of the pool's site.
Via: BBC
Photo: University of Essex
Note: Pool measurements were corrected to read 50 meters in width and depth, or about 165 feet. The dimensions were incorrect in the initial version of the story. Tech Times regrets the error.
