Mission Journal 14 — Craig Cooper: Mission Day 10: Wednesday, July 21st, 2004
Well it’s around 0400 on our last day, we just passed 7 fsw and we’ll be taking in the sea breezes in another 4 1/2 hours. I’m “driving the bus” presently, what our guys like to call exhausting the habitat back to surface pressure, driving us home. Everyone else is asleep, but we got this far under the steady hand and watchful eyes of Roger Garcia and my fellow hab tech Joe March, who took their turns driving when we started up this road at 1600 yesterday. Roger came in as a third hab tech for deco, but primarily for monitoring our early oxygen breathing periods, so
Joe and I could join the other aquanauts on O2 and not be burdened with
exhausting the habitat on its prescribed ascent schedule. Of course there’s another reason Roger is in here, he’s also serving as Diving Medical Technician for anything that might present during decompression, and I personally don’t know a finer DMT than Roger, not to mention being my saturation partner this time last year for another ten day sat. So far his work has been minimal, but poor Tara has an ear infection that started yesterday and is keeping her awake tonight, but he and our Navy DMO (Diving Medical Officer) Doc Sparks have that in control already.
The ten days flew by down here, there were great days when I could get out for 5-6 hours diving for exterior valve maintenance, then there were not so great days when all I could squeeze out was a thirty minute dive to do the daily exterior systems’ checks. One guy who certainly earned his keep on this mission was my partner Joe, without his ability to troubleshoot all the communication issues going on at once, this mission would have been a bust. Joe sacrificed much of his desired daily diving release to stay inside to see that all the media events, wireless dive comms to Houston, and yes, even a live link to the International Space Station, came off as planned for the NEEMO team. And he did it all with that huge smile he’s worn since becoming a diver, and I can’t say I was always smiling down here. My hat goes off to Joe, he pulled this one off for the team.
I could fill pages with all the help our topside NURC divers lent to this mission, equipment supply for this mission was beyond our normal load, and all that gear can only get here through the hard work of the “potting crew”, which included our big 30″ diameter dry pot for this mission, and those guys made it look easy. Hal, Billy, Thor, Ross, Roger, great job,
and today will be another major haul out to end the mission. I cannot forget mentioning the support we got during the mission from NASA NBL divers Brent Fergurson and Greg Sims (if I spelled this wrong I’m sorry, but it should be spelled w.o.r.k.h.o.r.s.e!), Navy Experimental Diving Unit divers Tim Moebious and Adolph Herrera, US Naval Academy intern Tim Letts, and NOAA’s Jeff Kelly. They were all involved heavily with the potting and other activities, I know our guys appreciated the help and we thank.
Trying to recognize everyone is surely going to get me into trouble as I’m bound to miss someone. All the media events would not have come off without the link through Kea back at the base, as well as putting all the journals and pictures on the web page, way to go Sis. To Otter for leading the charge with the afternoon assaults and your hand in the deliveries, to James and Dominic, the forgotten ones who watch over us on the graveyard shift through the night. And last, but certainly not least to my friend the “HOM” (Habitat Operations Manager), Jim Buckley, who had to coordinate all this wealth of tasking and people with us down here and the topside NEEMO team as well, great job Jim.
Who am I forgetting, well the remaining folks at NURC, Otto, Mike, and Diana, the countless people at NASA EXPOC, the NEEMO topside team, and oh yes, my fellow aquanauts, John, Wheels, Tara, and Nick. They are the stars of this show and I know don’t mind letting me mention all the little guys behind the scenes. They have been a pleasure to be locked up with for ten days, and I hope we have not seen the last of them. They
were loaded down with tasks this mission and they stuck to their guns to get it done. When they hit walls, they regrouped and charged ahead again, I give them much credit for all they accomplished. Most of all I thank them for letting me demolish, I mean disassemble, their Waterlab project, that was four hours of joyful diving.
To close, I want to thank my good friends Bob Barth and Capt Mark Helmkamp for getting us where we are today in many ways, and by continuing to foster cooperative efforts with the Navy and NURC for assistance with equipment and manpower. And on the days when being down here seemed to start taking its toll, there would come this magical call from either of them that reminded me why I have the best job in the world.
Another ten day mission starts August 9, hope you’ll join us.