Scott Carpenter Space Analog Station

Designed and built as part of KSC's Mission To America's Remarkable Students (MARS) outreach effort, the station was operated continuously for 31 days on the sea floor off Key Largo, Florida in 1997. Carpenter Station mission crews conducted 21 classroom telephone links during the mission. The station linked to the MARS schools, to the Johnson Space Center and to the Ames Research Center from the ocean floor. The station also made several links to a village north of the Arctic Circle in Canada. The Carpenter Station crew answered questions about space life sciences and space analogs which increased student and public interest in the sciences and the Space Program.

NASA's Life Sciences organization supports human exploration in the extreme environment of space; a challenge we embrace.

The Carpenter Station will support the Challenge Project with a seven day mission (September 23-30, 1998) on the seafloor in Key Largo, Florida. The size of the Apollo Command Module, the station demonstrates concepts of space life support systems to the public by modeling space missions in the undersea environment. The Station was designed by Dennis Chamberland, Life Sciences Outreach Coordinator at Kennedy Space Center and Challenge Project Mission Commander.

While inside the Carpenter Station, crew members will demonstrate how commitment to continuous mental and physical fitness can contribute to successful aging. As a learning opportunity, the Challenge Project will deal with the remarkable parallels NASA research reveals between aging and spaceflight physiological changes. To focus our audience on the benefits of defying gravity, we will highlight the role of exercise to combat deconditioning, on Earth and in space.

For more information on the Scott Carpenter Space Analog Station or the MARS Program contact: Dennis Chamberland Code JJ-G John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida 32899 NASA email: dennis.chamberland-1@ksc.nasa.gov Office phone: (407) 853-5142 or (407) 867-7411