MIPIM UK: An RAF site earmarked for sale by the Ministry of Defence could become the world’s first commercial astronaut training centre, including the world’s deepest diving pool.
The £140m facility at RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire forms part of a vision of Central Bedfordshire Council for a science and technology park on the site, which the MoD announced in 2016 it would close as part of a £1bn savings programme.
The 380-acre site, which contains listed buildings, is situated along the economic growth corridor between Oxford and Cambridge.
Blue Abyss is the company behind the astronaut training facility, and was at MIPIM UK last week with Central Bedfordshire Council to showcase its plans.
Hugh Keir, site and facilities manager for the firm, said in an EG podcast: “We are creating the foremost marine-to-space research training and development facility and the world’s first fully accredited astronaut training centre.
“With Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and their grand plans for space tourism, they’ve got the rockets to send people into space, but who is going to train them? We’re going to be the first entity that can do that en masse, and fully accredited.”
The pool will be 50m deep and hold 42m litres of water. By depth and volume it will be the largest in the world, bigger than NASA’s own Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston, Texas, which holds 23m litres of water and is 12m deep.
The diving pool could also be used for offshore research and development in the oil and gas industries, submersibles testing, human life science research, and it could also be used as an outsource facility for space agencies.
Blue Abyss is funded by private investors, and also hopes to secure government funding made available for higher education and research.
Built in 1918, RAF Henlow is of particular interest to the company, as it already has the foundations of a long-arm centrifuge which can be used for high G-Force training.
Keir said that the enthusiasm of Central Bedfordshire council was pivotal in the company’s decision to locate there.
“We hadn’t actually considered putting the whole facility there, but as time progressed we realised the council and the people we were dealing with were really intrigued by the project, and as the plans for the science and technology park and that growth corridor came together, we realised that locating the whole facility there was a good option.
“The support the council gave us in terms of marketing, and engaging local enterprises was key. We had a lot of trust in them from the outset.”
The council launched its vision for a science and technology park on the site earlier this year.
The MoD is to close the site fully in 2020, but Blue Abyss hopes to have built the training facility by then, and so is in ongoing talks with the MoD.
The proposed facility has been designed by the architect of London’s Gherkin, Robin Partington.
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