Houston, we have a podcast.

Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center,

episode 146, Neutral Boiancy.

I'm Gary Jordan and I'll be your host today.

On this podcast, we bring in the experts scientists engineers astronauts all to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight

We've talked about space walking a lot on this podcast. This is where astronauts get in their pressurized

spacesuits so they can go outside of a spacecraft. Nowadays on the International Space

Station they're usually doing a maintenance task like swapping out a battery, routing a cable, or upgrading

external Wi-Fi.

Most recently astronauts prepared a complicated particle physics experiment called the

Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.

Throughout human spaceflight history,

spacewalks have been integral in their success.

From the construction of the International Space Station

through the servicing missions of the Hubble Space Telescope,

these achievements would not be possible without well-trained astronauts going out a hatch

and performing these complicated tasks.

Astronauts are able to do this in space thanks to the training on Earth.

But there's nothing quite like floating in microgravity on Earth, so exactly how

do you train them?

Turns out, one of the best places to do it, underwater.

And underwater in a specially neutrally buoyant way,

...