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

Greetings!

NEEMO 7 is almost in the history books. We have had a very successful and rewarding mission, and have demonstrated that tele-mentored and tele-robotic surgery can be accomplished even in some of the most extreme environments on earth. At the same time, we’ve been able to exercise many different concepts and techniques that may be useful in taking NASA on to bolder adventures at the Moon and Mars. But the clock is running out, and today marked what we call “deco” day.

As you now know, the crew has spent the last 9 days at a depth of 47 feet. At that depth, their bodies have taken on excess amounts of nitrogen which has been absorbed in their body tissues and must be removed. In order to return to the surface, they will have to go thru a 16+ hour process called “decompression” or “deco”. This is a very safe procedure which is accomplished in several steps:

• The crew breathes pure oxygen for 3 short intervals to help decrease or “washout” the nitrogen in their blood;
• the main living quarters are “locked out” from the “wet porch” area and the internal habitat pressure is slowly brought to the surface pressure by exhausting the internal air to the surface (14 hours); and finally
• the habitat is “blown down” to the 47 foot level again in just a few minutes.

Then the hatch is opened and the crew swims slowly to the surface under the watchful eye of escorting safety divers. They should be on the surface at ~ 9:00 am on Thursday, where we (the Topside Team) will be waiting on the boat to take them home under the expert supervision of Mike Birns, Day Boat Science coordinator.

When we get back tomorrow, the crew will get a chance to relax and enjoy the fresh air. They’re prohibited from leaving the area for 24 hrs - 48 hrs if leaving by air (which they all are.) This gives the doc a chance to closely observe them for any signs of decompression problems, and treat them immediately if any show up. That’s just a precaution, though - this approach to decompression has been done hundreds of times successfully so far and is considered to be quite safe and conservative. They’re not really supposed to leave the base tomorrow, but we’ve arranged for their docs - Dr. Gerard DeMers, on loan from the US Navy, and Dr. Jean-Marc Comtois, from CSA - to accompany them to lunch tomorrow so they can have some “real” food. They’ll spend the afternoon relaxing, washing clothes, and packing up (and hopefully helping us pack all this stuff we have to ship back to Houston!) In the evening we’ll have the traditional “Splashup” party with our NURC hosts to celebrate the successful conclusion of the mission.

We want to take this opportunity to thank our hosts here at the National Undersea Research Center. Their professionalism and commitment to safety is second to none. They take great care of the nation’s only undersea research facility, they keep a close eye on our NASA/CSA/CMAS crewmembers, and they take great care of our Topside team and visitors. So to the habitat technicians, Billy Cooksey and James Talacek - a hearty “thank you” from us for teaching our crewmembers how to live as aquanauts. To Mark “Otter” Hulsbeck and Ross Hein, a sincere thanks for the great training you gave them. To Jim Buckley and Craig Cooper, thanks for managing these missions so professionally. For Kea Foreman and Dominic Landucci, a special thanks for all the time you put into making it possible for Aquarius to meet all the demanding technical requirements of this mission. And for the rest of the Aquarius side staff who potted daily, manned the watchdesk 24/7, and did it all with a smile, we can’t thank you enough. Finally, a special and sincere thanks to Otto, Mike, and Brady for being our boat captains for the last 3 weeks. We couldn’t have done it without you all.

Thanks for following along.
- NEEMO 7 Topside Team