Blue Abyss Diving Ltd. is considering the Cleveland area for its first commercial space and ocean exploration training center in the United States.
The $200 million extreme-environment research, testing and training center would include a 164-foot-deep pool, microgravity suite, astronaut training center, and hotel, said John Vickers, founder and CEO of the Cornwall, England-based startup, in an interview.
Blue Abyss is looking at Brook Park, Ohio, as a potential site for a facility, Edward Orcutt, the city's mayor, confirmed in an email. Brook Park is just south of Cleveland and near Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and NASA's Glenn Research Center.
Vickers started looking in Texas for his company's first U.S. location prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.
But "the idea of Ohio as a possible U.S. location for a Blue Abyss facility became increasingly compelling" after being introduced to Howard Goulden, an attorney at Howard Kennedy LLP in London and a long-time supporter of international business in Ohio, in late 2021, Vickers wrote in a company newsletter.
Vickers met twice in the United Kingdom with John Sankovic, CEO of the Ohio Aerospace Institute in Cleveland, and Kim Holizna, director of the institute's global development and member programs, prior to making his first trip to Ohio in mid-September, Sankovic said.
On his third trip to Ohio, Vickers and his colleague, Dr. Beth Healey, a British medical doctor, have been crisscrossing the state — largely traveling from Cleveland to Columbus and Dayton and back — for about a week to meet with local and state development officials, and potential partners, investors and customers, Vickers said.
Vickers came by his passion for space and ocean exploration at an early age, watching television shows by pioneering French marine oceanographer Jacques Cousteau during the 1970s and 1980s.
After spending eight years in the British Army, Vickers created leadership, management development, and eventually eBusiness programs for the likes of American Express, Oracle IBM and GE Capital, according to the Blue Abyss website.
Healey spent more than a year at Concordia Research Station — the remote, French–Italian research facility in Antarctica — using its extreme environment to extend research done by astronauts on the International Space Station, according to the Evening Standard.
The Blue Abyss could be used by astronauts or researchers to prepare them for space or ocean exploration, according to the company's website. The center also is expected to include a mock section of the International Space Station for commercial astronaut training.
Blue Abyss is evaluating ground conditions at a site adjacent to Newquay airport and Spaceport Cornwall for its first research center.
Blue Abyss is headquartered in Cornwall, U.K. In addition, John Vickers served in the British Army.
