Part V: NASA's Virtual Reality Lab

by KYW's Michelle Durham
  
Astronauts have to master the art of working in a zero-gravity environment, where just about everything you're familiar with is... different.

That 20-pound hammer won't weigh 20 pounds.  Even figuring out how to swing a hammer when your feet aren't firmly planted can be a challenge.  And when the instruction manual says "up" or "down," exactly which way is that?

David Homan (right) is manager of NASA's Virtual Reality Laboratory. His job is to prepare astronauts for Extra Vehicular Activities ("EVAs") -- or as they are commonly known, spacewalks.

"We do a number of things in here, what we call integrated EVA robotics operations. And that's basically when you have one the spacewalkers interacting with one of the robotic arms -- either on the shuttle or on the space station."

But getting your "space legs" definitely starts here.

When Homan put the virtual reality goggles over my eyes, I found out that working in space is much harder than it seems:

(Durham:)  "Well, I'm rightside up, but it seems like everything else is upside down! (The virtual reality system) really makes you feel as though you are in space, ready to do the work."

I remembered something that astronaut Chris Ferguson had shared with me a few days earlier:

(Durham:)  "Chris was right -- in space, how you perceive things is completely different. You can work any which way and it doesn't seem to matter."

But that doesn't make it any easier.

 

VIDEO:  Michelle takes the controls of NASA's Virtual Reality Lab