As the site for construction was selected now in force, but the planned closure in 2020 base Henlow, owned by the Royal air force and located in the County of Bedfordshire. The project, called Blue Abyss, estimated at 120 million British pounds and is part of a multimillion-dollar plan for redeveloping the former military base in new high-tech center of development and innovation.
At the base will be built a swimming pool for underwater exercises to a depth of 50 meters, a hotel with 120 rooms, a training center for astronauts, as well as the center for physical preparations, in which divers, future and present astronauts, and athletes can conduct their training at the highest level.
Very convenient that the territory of the military base to be closed in 2020, there are already several centers with the equipment needed to prepare astronauts for the harsh space conditions. For example, there is a so-called centrifuge, which allows to prepare people for severe physical stress.
It should be noted that the available pool will be three times deeper used aerospace Agency NASA 12-meter pool in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory to train its astronauts. The access to it will be possible to obtain not only in preparation for the next space projects. Companies involved in the offshore oil industry, and renewable energy will also be able to access a new pool Blue Abyss and use it as a platform to test their new high-tech equipment.
It is highly likely that the news about the construction of the new center Blue Abyss was the result announced last week the desire of the British government to increase the participation of the UK in the global space industry. Adopted the so-called “bill of the space industry” describes how to create the first UK space port and infrastructure needed to conduct vertical launches, kosmoplanov and satellites.
As potential sites for the construction of the spaceport in 2014, we selected eight locations. Six are in Scotland, one located in Wales and England. Later, however, all these places were excluded from the list as the most suitable area for construction was selected as the marine district Newquay (Cornwall).
The chief architect of the center Blue Abyss was chosen Robin Partington in charge of the construction of the London gherkin. Most likely, the construction will begin already in the end of this year, and the centre will be commissioned in 2019. After its opening the Blue Abyss will be able to provide 160 jobs.
In the UK will build the world’s first commercial center of training of astronauts
Nikolai Khizhnyak