The HabForum

well we got to talking about scuba so i thought we'd start a topic on it. Scuba was definately a highlight of the week.

Well, first we learned all of the stuff like how to purge your mask and stuff. and then we practised it on the platform. We went down slowly to the bottom, where we (walked?) over to the side of the tank and threw a ball around. then we went around to the structure in the middle and did stuff like put a box in a compartment. then we went around to every window and waved at a group of school kids who were fighting to wave at me (they were jumping up and down to reach the window. They were shouting "Hi" but i couldn't here them! It was alot of fun!) Then we did something and these rockets took off skyward (or surface-ward) with a loud whoosh! then we were done. It was so much fun!! but the air was so dry that i had to go and buy a coke right there and drink it. I love SCUBA!!

Scuba was definately great. Sounds like you did the same stuff we did. Looking at the pictures in the archive though it looks like they have a mockup of part of the space station in the tank now. They also told us that the ball we tossed around weighed 100 pouns.

yeah the ball was huge. well the tank is 30 ft. deep but nowhere near the size of the real UAT!

Iy might not be as big as the real thing but its still one of the best parts of ASA.

didn't they used to put you in a mock space suit for the scuba? i remember a picture in the 1996 brochure the scuba guy was wearing like a mock space suit.

I've seen that picture too. They might have when it was stikk space academy level 2. But then again they also had an 8 day program and more time to do stuff like that. And with academy level 2 only MS's did scuba.

When i was ther there was a space station sort of mockup it was cool i had to launch a satelitte!

Well ive heard space camp is doing more space station stuff now so i guess the space station in the uat is part of that. Scuba diving at ASA was so cool i'd love to doit again.

Space Nerd wrote:When i was ther there was a space station sort of mockup

same here. we went all around it in a spiral as we ascended, doing various things. the instructor demonstrated and then i did it. i cant remember all the stuff we did, though. the instructors were funny!

It worked the same way with us although the space station mockup wasnt their in 98. The instructor took us arond and we did diffrent activities after she demonstrated them. Funny thing is although the tank isnt really that big i dont remember seeing any of the other pilots while i was down their.

LB206 wrote:Funny thing is although the tank isnt really that big i dont remember seeing any of the other pilots while i was down their.

you noticed that too? I thought that was wierd myself... maybe its because of limited peripheral vision with the goggles

Maybe thats it. I dont know

There were 2 instucters and they took us down one at a time (one pereson to an instructer) but i did see the other person at the bottom.

I dont know how many people went down at time when i went i do know i was the last one to get to the bottom because i had trouble clearing my ears on the way down. Maybe i didnt see them because they finished before me.

I was down at the bottom for the longest. I had problems clearing my ears so it took me longer to get down.

I had the same problem going down their was on spot i had trouble clearing my ears so i'm sure i was probably the last one at the bottom.

I don't recall having trouble clearing my ears, but I stopped on every rung and did the ol' "hold your nose and blow" to keep them cleared. I think I probably went a bit slow, but I wasn't going to take any chances after the horror stories we were told about lungs collapsing and such. I remember it being very quiet down there except for a high-pitched sound which was, i guess, the air regulator (mine or someone elses). Well I also remember how dry the air was (they did tell us it would be dry; this is one of the reasons asthmatics cannot dive). My favorite part was waving to the kids through the windows. I enjoyed SCUBA so much that I will probably be taking lessons to get certified soon. There is a place locally (the same place where I took swimming lessons!) that can certify me relatively cheaply. The only thing I remember anybody complaining about was how quickly the instructors could move around the tank and how slowly we moved, probably because they had fins and we didn't!!

<------ This is me after SCUBA if I forget to keep my mask pressurised!

We stopped at every rung on the way down also. At one point i guess i didnt clear my ears enough and went down to the next rung and couldnt clear them so i had to go up a rung and do it again. After i fully cleared it at the rung and went back down and had no problems.

One girl on our team couldn't hear out of one ear when she came out of the water. They took her to the hospital and she was gone nearly half of the day. It was scary because I hadn't dived yet and thought it might happen to me. But she came back and they said she just had an ear infection. She was given medication to take and her hearing gradually came back in that ear. I am lucky though that I had no problems clearing or anything.

I remember having trouble hearing when i came out of the tank but i could still hear enough and it cleared up later in the day. I think it was just watter in the ear.