The Navy's Indoor Ocean

It's 240 feet wide, 360 feet long, and holds over twelve million gallon of water. This is the MASK, the maneuvering and seakeeping basin at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Carderock.

It's one of the largest indoor oceans in the world, making the MASK the most advanced test facility of its kind.

So why does the Navy need an indoor ocean? The truth lies in these dimly-lit, somewhat mysterious waters.

[diiegofer]

Imaging swimming in there and feel that something touches your foot.
I’d pass out instantly.

[sentinal_entity]

Next thing you know NASA's gonna have an indoor galaxy

[Ayeato]

They’re secretly keeping a giant sea monster in there.

[PIXPIX-htvo]

I worked at Carderock 1972-1977 and enjoyed it greatly. Met my wife there. It's a unique facility in all the world. Built in the 1930s to replace a tiny facility down at the Washington Navy Yard. The main tow tank is 5/8 of a mile long and built to conform to the curvature of the earth, which they did without the aid of computers or lasers. Back in the 1970s the USA Olympic Kayak Team would sometimes train in there. Lots of scientific disciplines on the campus; about 2000 employees and usually about 200 are PhD types. At one time they had some German wind tunnels brought over after WW-2. There is a huge storage room under the east end of the main tow tank that looks like that scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark where they keep putting large boxes into storage. It was a memorable 4.5 years of my working life.

[oneprettyrose]

The fact that humans can recreate the ocean is both scary and fascinating but still scary .

[jeremybonilla]

I’m more scared of that pool than the actual ocean

[keamomatlala]

I know nobody searched navy ocean but here we are

[Kamitzz]

This looks like a pool that the government would keep one of those giant sharks from jaws in. Looks terrifying

[mati]

I don’t know why I found this “pool” so creepy...

[carsonmoore]

My mind would be like " did I just see a shark?! "

[EnlighTeNing]

Now I understand what Travis Scott meant by, “She thought it was the ocean, it's just the pool.”

[largegrape]

Why is this so horrifying to look at? Imagine being in that dark water

[kylenuttree]

Honestly looks more freaky than the actual ocean.

[scarfacepatrick]

So we all just happened to get this in our recommendation today? Lol

[aisaketyivatukalo]

Even though its a Navy indoor pool it still looks shark infested

[Cunch]

I love how fluent they are in vagueness

[leyah]

Even though it's indoor, it looks scary.

[Shaggyshadric]

Me in my bathtub with a toy boat: “I’m something of a scientist myself”

[kimmykim]

This makes me feel like I can't breathe

[sondervanwert]

Went here on a field trip once in middle school! We got to test our underwater robots that we had made in shop class. It was really cool!