Mission Blog | Mission & Project Info | NOAA’s Aquarius Undersea Laboratory

Ask an Aquanaut: How did it begin?

Mission: Ask An Aquanaut
Posted by: Ellen Prager | Comments Off

Richard asks: How did the Aquarius Habitat get started as a project and who were the leaders of it? Did they know George F. Bond or Ian Koblick or James W. Miller? Did Jaques Cousteau or any of his familly ever visit Aquarius?

Dear Richard,

The predecessor to Aquarius was a smaller habitat, Hydro-lab. After the Hydro-lab’s success, we worked under Senator Lowell Weicker’s direction to build a new generation habitat with NOAA. This was a bit of a downgrade from the elaborate Ocean Lab that Weicker was pushing at the time, which had little support because of the costs involved. NOAA and its then director of the man under the sea science and technology, Elliot Finkle, chose a proposal from U So Cal. to build the Aquarius and to permantly place it off Santa Catalina Island. We then worked to get the money for construction through appropriations. While the Lab was being constructed things changed (for reasons I won’t go into here) and we decided to move it to the Virgin Islands instead of Catalina Island. The Aquarius then replaced the Hydro-Lab and was given to Fairleigh Dickinson University to operate. In 1989, following Hurricane Hugo, Aquarius was moved to Key Largo and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington was chosen as the operator.

Yes we knew all of these people, but Koblick, George Bond, Cousteau had nothing to do with Aquarius. Jim Miller as a NOAA employee had some to do with it. To my knowledge, Cousteau never visited Aquarius.

Bob Wicklund
UNCW Director of Federal Programs

Ask an Aquanaut: Mission Complete?

Mission: Ask An Aquanaut, April, 2008 Saturation
Posted by: Craig Cooper | Comments Off

Tomlin Middle School asks: With mission 1 over and Mission 2 , two days away from ’splash up”, have you (both mission crews) accomplished everything you have printed for your goals on the mission summary page? What is the Kamper Waystation, it’s purpose and why are you replacing this to a new site 400′ from Aquarius?

Besh wishes to the crew in the Habitat and to the topside support team. We will follow your next mission in May. Thanks TMS

Dear TMS

Thanks for following along on these missions with the Navy SRDD divers. We can gladly report that we are very pleased with the results of both five day missions and the work completed by the 8 Navy divers and our 2 hab techs, James and Justin. We accomplished our goals of further demonstrating the use of the MK 16 rebreathers throughout the heavy construction projects, their resupply of consumables to operate during the missions, even their changeout when one “rig” had to be swapped with a backup and the faulty unit brought back to the surface. All of the major construction projects involving drilling and grouting (cementing) pins and bolts for the two waystations, as well as the bracket installations to expand the air flask farm on the seafloor, were completed, and gave the divers the opportunity to work their rebreathers hard so that they can gain experience in its limits. Our hab techs also completed many maintenance projects, and helped the SRDD divers at times on their dives when possible.

The Kamper Waystation is one of our underwater scuba fill stations with communication back to the habitat. Divers can work in the deeper reef areas and return there to refill their tanks every two hours, without having to traverse the additional 400′ back to Aquarius, allowing them more time on the reef to do their work. It is located in 85 feet of water and is an open bottom diving bell with a large acrylic dome, again connected to Aquarius with its own 400′ umbilical carrying high pressure air and communications. “Kamper” was proudly named after our friend and former Supervisor of Navy Diving, Capt. Mark Helmkamp. It is currently on the dock being refurbished before being deployed for an upcoming mission, SRDD divers do not require underwater fill stations with their rebreathers. If you search mission pictures from previous years’ missions you should find a picture of “Kamper” or its sister station “Koblick”.

Installation of the new underwater fill station at the Southeast Crossroads required that “Kamper” be moved to the north to create some separation between these stations. Both are along the 85 fsw contour, sitting on sand patches, surrounded by spur and groove reef, with easy access to the deeper reefs, or back to the habitat. The station going to the SE Crossroads looks just like the Gazebo outside the habitat that you see on the web cam. It will be bolted to a 3000 lb concrete disc for ballast, “Kamper” has 18 lead bars anchoring its base, each weighing 120 lbs. SRDD divers moved all those weights to the new location 300′ from the SE Crossroads, set up the base, then drilled a boat mooring in the seabed so we could moor directly overhead to deploy “Kamper” for its next mission.

Thanks again for your interest in our program from all of us topside and the aquanauts below. We appreciate all of you there in Plant City, Fl, and thanks to Justin’s fine performance on these two missions, you were well represented.

Craig Cooper
Operations Director

Ask an Aquanaut: Missions

Mission: Ask An Aquanaut
Posted by: Ellen Prager | Comments Off

Florence and Emma white asked: How do your misions work?
What is it like to practically live under water?

Dear Florence and Emma

Those are two good, big questions. I’ll try to hit some highlights….

Missions last typically from one to two weeks, plus a week of training beforehand. During the week of training the aquanauts plan out what they will be doing during the mission, including the dive schedule, experiments and other work they want to get done. Our staff is also busy at that time running the training program, making sure the habitat is operating smoothly and everything is in working order. They also use special pots to dive food, personal items, and equipment down for inside the habitat. The mission begins as the aquanauts dive down and enter Aquarius and begin living undersea inside the habitat. They can dive 6 to 9 hours a day down to about 95 feet and accomplish lots of work and science underwater that would be very timely and costly if working from the surface. After a mission, as previously described, they go through 17 hours of decompression in the habitat before returning to the surface.

The best thing about living underwater is the view! Living inside Aquarius the aquanauts get to see the surrounding reef, fish and waters 24 hours a day - you never know what might pass by a viewport or what you might see. Food tends to taste bland living at high-pressure, and without a stove or oven, the aquanauts feast mainly on dehydrated meals that are prepared by adding hot water….just like astronauts. There is also a microwave and sometimes, on special occassions a diver may make a special delivery. The aquanauts sleep in bunks and our habitat technicians and staff keep careful watch of all the life support systems and workings of the habitat and divers.

Thanks for the question.
Ellen Prager
Chief Scientist

Ask an Aquanaut:The Ascent

Mission: Ask An Aquanaut, April, 2008 Saturation
Posted by: James Talacek | Write a comment!

Tomlin Middle School asks: Last Friday the class watched in anticipation as one of the aquanauts talked on the phone and monitored the computers as the others waited for the signal that everything was safe and ready for the crew to exit the Habitat. After the ‘high five’ sign we swithed to the gazeboo cam. We watched the topside crew in full gear await the Habitat crew to exit the wet porch. Our classroom question is this: Does the topside crew helping the Habitat crew share the oxygen masks they have on or does the inside Habitat fully dress in gear to get to topside? All we could see was the topside crew then legs coming from the wetporch area and maybe three people at a time swim to the top. Hopefully this Friday’s pictures will be a little clearer than last week.
Do the inside Habitat crew just use hand pumps with oxygen to make it to the surface or are they sharing with the topside crew? How long does it take to surface from the Habitat?

Tomlin Middle School,

Let me start by saying that your class is very observant and obviously has a good understanding of our operations.

The topside crew (safety & ascent divers) use their own air masks. The aquanauts do not dress in full diving gear. We use small “bail out” bottles. We can do this safely because the topside divers are there to escort the aquanauts to the surface. The ascent takes two minutes.

The Habitat crew was excited to hear that your class watched us inside and then switched camera views to see us leaving Aquarius during the last mission. Depending on the sea conditions we may exit on the Gazebo side again, but possibly on the “Aquarius exterior” camera side. Hopefully on Friday the visibility will be good, so if you are watching you can see us again.

James Talacek
Habitat Technician

Ask an Aquanaut: Decompression

Mission: Ask An Aquanaut, April, 2008 Saturation
Posted by: James Talacek | Write a comment!

Tomlin Middle School asks: When it says the crew has 17 hours of decompression what do you mean? Is the entire time in the bunks with the masks on or is the Aquarius interior being decompress before they can surface after a mission?

Dear Tomlin Middle School,

That is a great question. During our decompression the pressure inside Aquarius is slowly reduced until it reaches 1 Atmosphere which is 14.7psi (surface pressure). During the first one hour and ten minutes of decompression we lay in our bunks and breath 100% oxygen from masks. We do that for three 20 minute periods, with a five minute air break in between each oxygen period. After that the Aquanauts can move around inside Aquarius, but can not go outside since our hatch is sealed.

After the decompression period is complete we briefly re-pressurize the interior so we can the hatch open and swim up to the surface.
One of the U.S. Navy divers told me this: “the best way to deal with a long decompression period is to use the 3M rule……….Meals, Movies & Mattress”.

Thank you for following our mission.

James Talacek
Habitat Technician

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Ask an Aquanaut: How did it begin?

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Ask an Aquanaut: Mission Complete?

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Ask an Aquanaut: Missions

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Ask an Aquanaut:The Ascent

Mission: Ask An Aquanaut, April, 2008 Saturation
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Ask an Aquanaut: Decompression

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Ask an Aquanaut: How did it begin?

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Ask an Aquanaut: Mission Complete?

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Ask an Aquanaut: Missions

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Ask an Aquanaut:The Ascent

Mission: Ask An Aquanaut, April, 2008 SaturationPosted by: James Talacek | Write a comment!

Ask an Aquanaut: Decompression

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Mission: Ask An Aquanaut
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Mission: Ask An Aquanaut, April, 2008 Saturation
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Mission: Ask An Aquanaut
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Mission: Ask An Aquanaut, April, 2008 Saturation
Posted by: James Talacek | Write a comment!

Mission: Ask An Aquanaut, April, 2008 Saturation
Posted by: James Talacek | Write a comment!