Buoyancy "downward" direction. The center of buoyancy of an object is the centroid of the displaced volume of fluid. Archimedes' principle is named after Archimedes of Syracuse, who first discovered this law in 212 B.C. For objects, floating and sunken, and in gases as well as liquids (i.e. a fluid), Archimedes' principle may be stated thus in terms of forces: — with the clarifications that for a sunken object the volume of displaced fluid is the volume of the object, and for a floating object on a liquid, the weight of the displaced liquid is the weight of the object. More
Neutral Buoyancy Simulator tank saw astronaut training in pressure suits beginning with the Navy Mark IV. The MSFC Manufacturing Engineering (ME) lab developed a constant pressure valve which "made it possible to maintain neutral buoyancy at any depth." Divers first tried the Mark IV in the tank in July 1966, and Alan Bean spent two hours "executing typical astronaut activities" in the tank on September 6, 1966. Bean was "quite enthusiastic and outspoken about neutral buoyancy as one of the mandatory methods of simulation for all the S-IVB Workshop experiments," according to Manufacturing Engineering director W. R. Kuers. Stocks, the controller for that