It is difficult to single out just one event to highlight in my daily journal. Each day I do many things aboard Aquarius that I have not previously experienced in my professional career. Today was no exception. I could write about our WaterLlab construction project or I could write about the medical science that we have been performing inside the habitat.
But instead I will write about a visitor to Aquarius. Our visitor’s name is “Inuktun” and it is a VGTV or ‘Variable Geometry Tracked Vehicle.’. In other words, it is a small robot. Inuktun looks a bit like Star Wars’ R2D2 but with its own treaded track and a capability to change shape to facilitate movement around obstacles. Inuktun has many uses including surveillance and pipeline inspections. It also helped in the search and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center site following the 11 September attack. And Inuktun is waterproof which means that it can work on the ocean floor. The Inuktun system was ‘potted’ down to Aquarius early today. The entire system consists of the robot as well as a control unit, laptop computer and long umbilical.
In mid-afternoon, Whitney Holling, an engineer with American Standard Robotics, dove down to Aquarius to brief us on the operation of the robot. To avoid the perils of Ddecompression Ssickness (a.k.a. “the Bbends”), Whitney could stay only one hour aboard Aquarius. In that time she needed to power up and check out the robot, and then train us on its operation.
Prior to Whitney’s arrival, we had connected up the rover system to Aquarius’ power and data lines. Once onboard, Whitney activated the system. The power LED lit up as expected but so did every other LED on the control panel. In fact, they were all madly flashing like a 1970s discotheque! Houston, we had a problem!
Robotic rover operations were threatened, and we only had minutes left to debugged this problem before Whitney had to leave for the surface. James Talacek, our NURC crewmate, quickly noted that the push buttons on the rover control panel were of the flush memory type. Each control button was a small, pressure-sensitive, sealed button (similar to keypads on some camcorders or calculators). The increased ambient pressure in Aquarius (two-and-a-half times that on the surface) had flattened several of the control buttons so that they were sending a continuous ‘close’ status to the robot electronics. The robot was confused and indicated so with its flashing control lights.
“Craig!”, we yelled. “Bring a suture and come here quick!” When Dr. Craig, our crewmate and skilled surgeon, arrived on the scene, we had him puncture tiny holes in the overlying membrane of the compressed buttons with a needle to allow in ambient air and return them to their nominal ‘open’ state. That did the trick! We power -cycled the control box and were back in business. Whitney gave us a crash course on operating the Inuktun rover and then returned to the surface.
Since Inuktun is Canadian technology, the NEEMO 7 team allowed me to control the rover first. I sent Inuktun out to explore the sandpatch and reef around Aquarius. What a thrill!
Inuktun also reminds me of the two NASA/JPL robots currently exploring the Martian surface. Spirit and Opportunity have captured the attention of international scientists and the worldwide public with their startling images of the Martian landscape and evidence that water may have once existed there. Undersea robots are doing the same to explore the ocean floor and expand our understanding of the undersea frontier.
Both robots and humans have roles to play in the exploration and development of space and the undersea world. I like to think that the capabilities of robots and humans complement each other in space and other frontiers. For instance, robots can reliably perform repetitive, programmed duties in extreme environments. Human explorers, on the other hand, are adept at using ingenuity to solve unexpected problems. I was quite proud that, working together, the NEEMO 7 crew diagnosed the problem with Inuktun’s confused control panel this afternoon and quickly implemented a solution that rescued the robot’s mission.
Inuktun is still with us. If we can find time in our schedule tomorrow, we will get one more chance to practice our robotic skills. My top priority now, however, is to get to bed. We must rise at 5 AM to prepare for a pre-sunrise scuba dive into the reef … one more new experience for me.
Today was mystical for me. I went on my first dive. I left the wet porch at 16:50 and returned at 18:22.
To attempt to describe the experience I had today is like trying to describe fatherhood. Unless you are a father, it is difficult to understand the joy of fatherhood. My thinking about the dive today is similar in that I am at a loss for words. I do have a de ja vu feeling about attempting to explain what I experienced today and it is similar to trying to explain to some one who is not a father what fatherhood is like.
I would say that I felt somewhat surreal. As I was performing my task today, it slowly became dark. I could see the light of the habitat at a distance and it was my home. Logically, I knew the surface of the water column existed, but it was beyond what I could experience and so I had a sense that I had left one world and was living in another. Beyond the top of the water column was an outer world, and I was living in an inner world. And in my world, a push with my hand sends me floating across the landscape, and a kick of my feet moves me through a 3 dimensional space I cannot access if I were above the water column.
And the birds in my world can hover motionless, and the plants in my world have a 3 dimensionality than can only exist in neutral buoyancy.
At the end of the dive, I returned to Aquarius with a different perspective. For me, Aquarius had become an outpost, a safe haven, and a place I consider home.
When I returned to the habitat, I asked Cady Coleman one question. “Is this like being in space?” Her answer was “Yes”.
Today was tough. Due to a system failure, we were not able to perform all of our scheduled activities.
One of the key technologies that enables NEEMO 7′s telementoring and telesurgery experiments is a broadband high-rate data link between our Aquarius habitat and St. Joseph’s Health Care Centre in Hamilton, Ontario. A key hardware component of that data link is located on the large life support buoy (LSB) floating over our habitat. That component failed around noon today. Consequently Aquarius was no longer able to transmit high-rate video imagery from its mocked-up operating room. Mike Barratt and I had been scheduled to repair torn arteries with sutures while being telementored from Hamilton. These sessions had to be cancelled.
The good news is that a new component has been ordered and should be installed on the LSB by noon tomorrow. In the meantime, Aquarius operations will rely upon a back-up low data rate comm system. The bad news is that tomorrow’s timeline is no longer valid and will need to be scrubbed. Our ‘topside team’ will undoubtedly stay up late tonight to re-plan tomorrow’s crew activities. A new plan should be aboard Aquarius for our perusal when we awake.
I had been quite pleased that up until today (Day 4), our crew had been able to follow the original mission timeline that had been meticulously developed during the weeks and months leading up to NEEMO 7 … not an insignificant accomplishment!
We have a joke in the Astronaut Office that a mission timeline is rarely valid once the Space Shuttle has launched. Minor system malfunctions or payload glitches inevitably occur during every space mission that require re-planning of ensuing on-orbit activities. That is par for the course. Mission timeliners are certainly important members of every flight control team.
Four days on the original NEEMO 7 timeline is not a bad record. I bet that our high-rate data line will be restored tomorrow and that we will soon continue with the telemedicine operations. We will do all we can to collect the requested scientific data. Knock on wood!
So how do you start your day on Aquarius? You roll out of your bunk at about 06:00 in the morning, make the coffee, pick up the paper, and switch on the REEF Channel to catch the latest predator – prey drama. That’s pretty realistic to life here, except for the paper. The REEF Channel is the large round window at the main lock galley table. The life and acvtivity through this window is unbelievable, from the stately and now familiar ‘big old barracuda’ (BOB) to the aggressive sergeant major fish who like to mess around the hatch ring. This morning we were witness to an incredible show when a small fleet of yellow tail jacks herded and surrounded a swarm of three -inch silver baitfish right outside our window, then took turns slashing through the middle to grab what each could. We interrupted our daily planning conference several times with “holy cow!” and “watch the one with the bent fin!” Not much excitement from the guys back in Houston, but if they had it on the big screen they would be distracted as well.
The wet porch, our front entrance and doorway to the water column, as we call it, was a madhouse today. We had planned four launchings of the Navy EX-14 dive suits, one of which happily contained me. The EX-14 is a modernistic hardhat apparatus that bears a fairly close resemblance to an EVA suit. Although on an umbilical, you carry a backpack and wear a full helmet that keeps your head dry and affords great comm, in our case with the tenders on Aquarius and the ExPOC back in Houston. There are helmet -mounted lights and video to ensure others get to share in the experience. Once we got through the checklist and out the door and got some buoyancy issues settled, I found myself standing on the outside grating overlooking the sand patch about 12 feet below. It was an easy leap down, and you could immediately see the possibilities of this outfit. With a slightly negative buoyancy, it is very similar to walking on the mMoon, water drag notwithstanding. After a few teetery steps re-learning the balance thing, I was able to bound over the surface and go through movements of wrenching big bolts, setting up antennas, measuring and examining local rock formations, and flag flying – the elements of surface exploration. There are definite advantages to simulating an integrated package of exploration equipment and practices down here.
I was also able to do front and back flips, leap up on top of a local gazebo, and do hand stands with ease – the elements of partial gravity fun. I’ve got to get one of these! Since there was some free time when the dive objectives had been met and our work-in-progress, Waterlab, was still out there, I decided to go fit some pipes and bolts together. I had the help of a little swimming ROV, or remotely operated vehicle, which handed me joints and ends as needed. Gregarious and agile little sucker with some personality; never did meet the driver. Definitely did not want to come in, but the clock was running. It was almost worth it to jump up the 12 feet to the grating and trundle back in the front porch. There’s a little superhero in all of us, when dressed up right.
So another great day; I stand ready to participate in any similar exploration oriented activities. We will all be comparing notes and working out the practicalities and possibilities of this venue. Now to see what dinner we can create out this gemisch of freeze-dried rations and powdered drink mixes.
Today I did a “way cool” thing. I dove with an experimental diving rig known as the EX-14 suit. This one-person suit was developed by the U.S. Navy and has been used at depths up to 600 meters.
The EX-14 is part of our NEEMO 7 mission because it provides an experience that is analogous to that of NASA’s extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) used for space walks. Suiting up in the EX-14 is similar to that in the EMU. It is heavy and cumbersome. Meticulous safety checks must be completed before the aquanaut leaves Aquarius’ “wet porch.”.
Suited in the EX-14 gear, I resembled the explorer from the old movie “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.”. I wore a hard helmet with front, side and overhead view-ports A long umbilical attached to the side of my suit continuously provided a supply of fresh air to my helmet. “Stale” air from my helmet was returned to the habitat via the umbilical so that no bubbles were vented to the surrounding water. A microphone and ear pieces allowed me to communicate with the dive tenders and the ExPOC (i.e., our NEEMO 7 mission control center). A television camera mounted on the top of my helmet provided views of the sea floor to mission controllers.
In the suit, I was barely negatively buoyant. In other words, it felt as though I was in lunar gravity. A jump of moderate effort would lift me a meter above the sea floor.
I recall a comment made by Walter Cronkite, the famous TV broadcaster, as he watched the images of the Apollo 11 astronauts during their lunar EVA. He remarked how quickly the astronauts had adapted to working on the lunar surface of 1/6 G. The human body and brain haves an incredible ability to adapt to new environmental conditions.
I can now identify with Mr. Cronkite’s remark. While I felt a bit unsteady for the first half-hour of my EX-14 experience, by the end of my dive I could bound across the sand flats near the Aquarius habitat just like the Apollo astronauts on the Moon. What a thrill!
The EX-14 suit is very reliable. My 3-hour experience in the suit today was completely nominal. While I had a few tasks to perform during my three -hour run, I also had a lot of quiet time on my own to inspect the exterior of the habitat and the nearby reefs. My favorite activity was to stand or kneel in a sand patch in the middle of a coral reef. After staying motionless for several minutes, I would blend into the sea life around me. The panoramic view out the helmet view -ports was better than an IMAX movie. A reef shark and stingray cruised by. Small fish swam right up to my helmet as though I wasn’t there. I saw tiny, shy creatures within the nooks and crannies of the reef that I had never noticed before.
Not a bad way to start the day. I can’t believe they pay me to do this job!
This afternoon and evening, I performed the CMAS-1 experiment and completed my first undersea laparoscopic cholecyctectomies. Both operations were successful (the simulated patient lived!) thanks to great telementoring by the principal investigator, Dr.Mehren Anvari. Dr. Anvari is an experienced surgeon and was located at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, while I performed the surgery in the Aquarius operating room. I feel proud to be part of a research effort that may provide future spacecraft and planetary research bases with surgical capability. And I’m sure that I will soon hear that the life of a patient in a remote region of Canada was saved by a telerobotic or telementored surgical procedure.
Not a bad day on the Aquarius habitat. Now I must review my procedures for tomorrow’s activities and then hit the sack.