STS-88 crewmen don Extravehicular Mobility Units

S98-09040 (June 1998) --- Astronaut James H. Newman, mission specialist, gets final touches on the training version of his Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) space suit prior to being submerged in the waters of the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) at the Johnson Space Center (JSC). The two assigned space walkers -- Newman and Jerry L. Ross -- shared the platform as it was lowered into the water where the pair moments later were training with full-scale mockups of the International Space Station (ISS) hardware with which they'll be working in space. One of those elements will be the Functional Cargo Block (FGB), which will have been launched a couple of weeks prior to STS-88. Once the FGB is captured using the Remote Manipulator System (RMS) of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, astronaut Nancy J. Currie, mission specialist, will maneuver the robot arm to dock the FGB to the conical mating adapter at the top of Node 1, to be carried in the Space Shuttle's cargo bay. In ensuing days, three Extravehicular Activity?s (EVA) by Ross and Newman will be performed to make power, data and utility connections between the two modules.