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Remembering Sealab
An anonymous reader writes "'Some people remember Sealab as being a classified program, but it was trying not to be,' says Ben Hellwarth, author of the new book Sealab: America's Forgotten Quest to Live and Work on the Ocean Floor, which aims to 'bring some long overdue attention to the marine version of the space program.' In the 1960s, the media largely ignored the efforts of America's aquanauts, who revolutionized deep-sea diving and paved the way for the underwater construction work being done today on offshore oil platforms. It didn't help that the public didn't understand the challenges of saturation diving; in a comical exchange a telephone operator initially refuses to connect a call between President Johnson and Aquanaut Scott Carpenter, (who sounded like a cartoon character, thanks to the helium atmosphere in his pressurized living quarters). But in spite of being remembered as a failure, the final incarnation of Sealab did provide cover for a very successful Cold War spy program."
I guess that explains Hesh's voice.
#DeleteChrome
Fignuts
It's like a koala bear crapped a rainbow in my brain!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRrQSGD2e14
I remember Sealab 2021 very well
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Space, sadly, doesn't even have oil exploration going for it.
I'm not sure that the fact that the "aquanauts" had funny-sounding voices when they were in their undersea, "synthetic-gas environment" is a sufficient explanation for the public and the media ignoring the Sealab programs.
If the media and a cereal company could turn Kim Kardashian's cross-dressing step-dad into a symbol of American manhood, then Scott Carpenter's helium-induced impression of Felix the Cat could not really have been that big of a public relations problem.
My fondest memory of Sealab was when Hank got trapped under the orange soda machine . . .
You know, I really hate rational people sometimes....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You guys laugh now, but of all places to find pockets of oil and natural gas in space, Mars is our closest workable candidate.
Really ? I think you'll find Uranus is a more prodigious source of natural gas.
Istanbul: I can't find any evidence of this underwater hotel actually exiting either.
Not Constantinople?
#DeleteChrome
That's nothing compared with the hate that the irrational can have for imaginary people. But most people in the real world simply don't like dealing with such complex issues.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
Aquanaut. Water sailor. Isn't that a little redundant?
Hang on... moon... space elevator... YES! Let's move the moon to a geostationary orbit and use it as the other anchor for a space elevator!
What could possibly go wrong?
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