Marshall Space Flight Center, Neutral Buoyancy Simulator Facility, Rideout Road, Huntsville, Madison County, AL

Significance: The Neutral Buoyancy Simulator (NBS) was NASA's first large, water-filled tank designed and built to create on Earth an experience very close to the weightless condition astronauts experienced when working in space. When properly weighted to compensate for their buoyancy, test engineers and astronauts in spacesuits were "neutrally buoyant," a condition closely simulating that of space. Various objects were buoyed or weighted to make
them neutrally buoyant as well. The NBS was large enough to accommodate full-size mockups of space hardware and structures submerged within it.
Results of tests in the NBS confirmed engineering designs and procedures, and astronauts initially practiced mission maneuvers there as well.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N1101
Survey number: HAER AL-129-B
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 85002807