Aquarius Undersea Laboratory » Ask An Aquanaut

Jake asked: do people sometimes get claustrophobic?

Dominic Landucci — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:11:37 +0000

My name is Rachelle and I would just like to know how many missions have you been on? What is the deepest you have ever gone in a ship? Have you ever discoverd some sort of fish or bacteria that wasnt discoverd before?

Dominic Landucci — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:08:43 +0000

Jackie asked: I always wanted to know if you would get a little crazy being under water for ten whole days, because i know i sure would. I also wanted to how did you guys get the idea for making an underwater reef base?

Dominic Landucci — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:08:16 +0000

Vincent asked: How and why did you build an underground sciance lab? Where is it located? Was it hard for you guys to build? And are the ocean currents strong enough to hold the lab?

Dominic Landucci — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:06:53 +0000

You guys are awesome!!!!! It is my dream to do what you are doing. I just have one question. How do you breath.

Dominic Landucci — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:06:30 +0000

Hello. Is it fun to do what u do? Is it cool to be under water all the time?… by Hannah

Dominic Landucci — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:05:01 +0000

Sarah asked: How long can a diver live in Aquarius? I know the typical amount of time is around 10 days, but what is the longest amount of time possible?

Dominic Landucci — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:46:05 +0000

As a general rule under normal conditions sat dives tend to be around 28 to 30 days on average and some contractors will restrict sat divers to no more than 182 days of sat in a 12 month calendar year (Diving Medical Advisory Committee). As for longer sat dives, there’s a history for sure of longer and deep sat dives, one example is a COMEX diver did a 2300 foot sat dive that lasted 43 days in 1992 (I think it included decompression but not sure). Also, the longer they go the harder it is to support with logistics, personnel etc… as you know, and can quickly wear down the crew and the divers. Medical conditions become more prevalent like ear infections, skin infections and skin conditions etc…

Big Sharks?

Dominic Landucci — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 20:47:57 +0000

Ron Asks: Have the divers had any encounters with big sharks?

We frequently see large nurse sharks that rest on the bottom. Other sharks are not seen very often. During one overnight decompression period, we had a large (10 foot) hammerhead shark circling the habitat for most of the night. He was gone by the time we exited the habitat to return to the surface

- whew!

Ask An Aquanaut: Change of plans?

Aaron Alexander — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:43:01 +0000

Mr. Kallenbach asks: Can you give me an idea about what changed the mission to a surface set-up rather than a submersion mission. This must require more work and you had prepared to be down for 7-10 days. Disappointed?

Carol Leonard asks: Was there a problem with the habitat? Why did you change this from saturation diving? We are studying diving technology in our marine science class.

Whenever you operate a system as challenging as Aquarius there is always the chance that technical issues will arise. In this situation, a system review uncovered an air storage facility that did not meet our standards. While we are confident that the flask would have performed without incident, we believed that it was prudent to take that system off-line and adequately address the issue during our extensive winter maintenance period.

Tom Asks…

Saul Rosser — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:18:43 +0000

Do you use any media for scrubbing CO? If so, what do you use?

We use sodasorb to remove CO2, but do not actively remove CO. We take steps to prevent CO from getting into the air supply, monitor for CO in the habitat, and continuously flush the habitat atmosphere.