Aquarius (laboratory) - Underwater Missions and Research

Underwater Missions and Research

Several missions on the Aquarius have been canceled due to hurricane activity. During Hurricane Gordon in 1994, a crew of scientists and divers had to evacuate Aquarius and climb up a rescue line to the surface in 15-foot seas after one of the habitat's generators caught fire. In 1998, Hurricane Georges nearly destroyed Aquarius, breaking a joint in one of its legs and moving two 8000-pound weights on the wet porch nearly off the structure. Both Hurricane Georges and Hurricane Mitch, later in 1998, also destroyed way stations outside Aquarius used to refill aquanauts' scuba tanks. In 2005, Hurricane Rita broke two of the habitat's seabed anchors and moved one end of Aquarius by twelve feet. As of 2008, no scientists or staff members had been injured at Aquarius due to storms.

Since 2001, NASA has used Aquarius for its NEEMO (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations) program, to study various aspects of human spaceflight in a similar environment. Like the environment of space, the undersea world is a hostile, alien place for humans to live. Aquarius provides a safe harbor for scientists to live and work for weeks at a time.

A diver named Dewey Smith died during a dive from Aquarius in May 2009. A subsequent investigation determined that Smith's death was caused by a combination of factors, including the failure of the electronic functions of his Inspiration closed circuit rebreather due to hydrodynamic forces from a hydraulic impact hammer being used nearby.

NOAA plans to cease funding Aquarius after September 2012, with no further missions scheduled after a July 2012 mission that included pioneering female diver Sylvia Earle in its aquanaut crew. The Aquarius Foundation has been set up in an attempt to keep Aquarius functioning.

In a two-week series the daily cartoon strip Sherman's Lagoon featured the potential closing of the Aquarius facility in the week starting September 10, 2012, and continued with a cameo appearance of Sylvia Earle in the week starting September 17, 2012, to discuss the importance of Aquarius.

Read more about this topic:  Aquarius (laboratory)

Famous quotes containing the words missions and/or research:

    There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.... Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to.
    Joseph Heller (b. 1923)

    Feeling that you have to be the perfect parent places a tremendous and completely unnecessary burden on you. If we’ve learned anything from the past half-century’s research on child development, it’s that children are remarkably resilient. You can make lots of mistakes and still wind up with great kids.
    Lawrence Kutner (20th century)