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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!
There was the idea in the 1960s that the ocean was as important a frontier as space. There was talk of undersea cities. Today, zilch. There are pretty renderings of underwater hotels on the web, but none of them actually got built. The one "underwater hotel" in the world is a recycled two room research habitat.
Drilling wells in the ocean floor is a big business, but that's about as far as it's gone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRrQSGD2e14
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedford_Institute_of_Oceanography This is also the area where they keep the lone remaining Avro Arrow for further study, that Hydrofoil warship that we did and the telephone. It's all super-secret.
I remember Sealab 2021 very well
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My fondest memory of Sealab was when Hank got trapped under the orange soda machine . . .
He sounds like Yakky Doodle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaa9ZJ2KSoQ
Divers sometimes use helium to replace some of the nitrogen. If you're at pressure, then the amount of nitrogen that goes into your blood stream can cause nitrogen narcosis. If you lower the partial pressure of N2 (by using He) then this is less likely.
Helium also diffuses quicker than nitrogen. But this can mean that decompression is a bit more difficult.
It talks about it a bit here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimix_(breathing_gas)
Mainstream magazines certainly covered it. That's how I knew about it as a kid. Hit Google Books with 'sealab popular' and select Full Version, for what ran in PopSci at the time.
It wasn't anywhere near as big a deal as the Moon program, but it got very good coverage for a single science program. Off the top of my head I can't think of another back then that got as much other than the Moon race.
I think it's hyperbole to say 'largely ignored'. There was a pretty good proportionate recognition. A little better than it deserved, arguably.
... and the tapping of communications cables. ... somebody is always interested.
Civilian or military, analogue, digital
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
...was Athlete's Foot.
The high-pressure, high-humidity atmosphere of the lab caused the fungi to spread like wildfire, to the point where it would spread to the entire body, and even cause a secondary bacterial infection with alarming ease.
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Alan Krasberg, one of the researchers connected with Sealab, was the son of one of my mother's best friends, Tammy Krasberg. Apparently one afternoon Alan was testing some rebreathing equipment in the family pool. Tammy, who was reading a magazine pool-side, realized she hadn't seen any activity from him for awhile, so she put down her magazine, dove in, hauled him to the surface and, at least according to the story my mother told, gave him CPR. He revived and his mother went back to her magazine.
I'm tempted to believe this since Tammy was one of the most unflappable people I have ever met.