From the outside, the chamber looks like a long storage container plopped on a pavement wasteland behind two seemingly ordinary office buildings. John Pye, a 46-year-old aerospace engineer born and raised in Canada, walked the distance in the glaring light and baking heat of midday and pulled a large door handle, like that on a walk-in freezer.

“We’re heading into where we spent about three months of our lives a year and a half ago,” Pye said.

And suddenly he was transported to another time, another place, when (and where) N.F.L. footballs and air pressure were all the rage.

I've never heard the phrase "NFL Science" before.