NASA has started preparing its future astronauts, who will explore the moon in future, by sending them to the depths of the ocean in its underwater lab.

This summer, NASA’s future astronauts will accompany an international diving crew in a special underwater laboratory under the Atlantic in order to train them for the harsh environment of space and of the surfaces of moon and Mars.

The 10-day NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) 23 expedition is scheduled to begin on June 10, where team of astronauts and ‘aquanauts’ will gather data about sleep, body composition, and using augmented reality for navigation while being stationed at the Aquarius laboratory situated some 62ft below the surface, as per NASA.

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The Aquarius Reef Base is the sole operational permanent underwater research facility in the world. It can fix six researchers and is operated by Florida International University (FIU), and also used by NASA and the Navy, reported Futurism.

“The close parallels of inner and outer space exploration will be clearly demonstrated during this undersea mission,” NEEMO project lead, Bill Todd said. “In the interior of Aquarius, aquanauts and astronauts will tackle an array of experiments and human research related to long duration space travel.”

For now, NASA is gearing up for its upcoming moon mission where it aims to send humans back to the lunar surface as soon as 2024.