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An aquanaut is any person who remains underwater, breathing at the ambient pressure for long enough for the concentration of the inert components of the breathing gas dissolved in the body tissues to reach equilibrium, in a state known as saturation.

Description

The term aquanaut derives from the Latin word aqua ("water") plus the Greek nautes ("sailor"), by analogy to the similar construction "astronaut". The word is used to describe a person who stays underwater, breathing at the ambient pressure for long enough for the concentration of the inert components of the breathing gas dissolved in the body tissues to reach equilibrium, in a state known as saturation. Usually this is done in an underwater habitat on the seafloor for a period equal to or greater than 24 continuous hours without returning to the surface.

The term is often restricted to scientists and academics, though there were a group of military aquanauts during the SEALAB program. Commercial divers in similar circumstances are referred to as saturation divers. An aquanaut is distinct from a submariner, in that a submariner is confined to a moving underwater vehicle such as a submarine that holds the water pressure out.

The first human aquanaut was Robert Sténuit, who spent 24 hours on board a tiny one-man cylinder at 200 feet (61 m) in September 1962 off Villefranche-sur-Mer on the French Riviera.

U.S. programs

Military aquanauts include Robert Sheats, author Robin Cook, and astronauts Scott Carpenter, and Alan Shepard. Civilian aquanaut Berry L. Cannon died in 1969 of carbon dioxide poisoning during the U.S. Navy's SEALAB III project.

From 1969 to 1970, NASA carried out two programs, known as Tektite I and Tektite II, using the Tektite habitat. Missions were carried out in which scientists stayed in the capsule for up to 20 days, in order to study fish ecology as well as to prove that saturation diving techniques in an underwater laboratory, breathing a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, could be safely and efficiently accomplished at a minimal cost. Tektite II also studied the psychological aspects of living in such confinement.

Scientific aquanauts include Sylvia Earle, Jonathan Helfgott, Joseph B. MacInnis, Dick Rutkowski, Phil Nuytten, and about 700 others, including the crew members (many of them astronauts) of NASA's NEEMO missions at the Aquarius underwater laboratory.

Russian military programs

A unit of the Russian Navy has developed an aquanaut program that has deployed divers more than 300 metres (980 ft) deep. An ocean vessel has been developed and is based in Vladivostok that is specialized for submarine and other deep sea rescue and that is equipped with a diving complex and a 120-seat deep sea diving craft.

Accidental aquanaut

A Nigerian ship's cook, Harrison Odjegba Okene, survived for 60 hours in a sunken tugboat, the Jascon-4, which had capsized on 26 May 2013 while performing tension tow operations and stabilising an oil tanker at a Chevron platform in the Gulf of Guinea off the Nigerian coast. After sinking, the boat came to rest upside-down on the sea floor at a depth of 30 m (98 ft). Eleven crew members died, but Okene felt his way into the engineer's office, where an air pocket about 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in) in height contained enough oxygen to keep him alive.

Three days after the accident, Okene was discovered by three South African divers from a saturation diving support vessel, employed to investigate the scene and recover bodies. Having discovered Okene alive, the rescuers provided him with a diving helmet so he could breathe during the transit to the diving bell. He was then returned to the surface for decompression from saturation, which took about two and a half days. After his ordeal underwater he faced and overcame his nightly terrors by becoming a commercial diver himself, earning a International Marine Contractors Association recognised Class 2 certificate.

See also

• Continental Shelf Station Two – Undersea research habitat in the Red Sea
• Jacques Cousteau – French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author (1910-1997)
• World Without Sun – 1964 film by Jacques Cousteau
• La Chalupa Research Laboratory – Primary platform for the Scott Carpenter Man in the Sea Program
• Astronaut

References

Internet sources

1. ^ Sténuit, Robert (1966). The Deepest Days. Trans. Morris Kemp. New York: Coward-McCann.
2. ^ Ecott, Tim (2001). Neutral Buoyancy: Adventures in a Liquid World. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. pp. 249–250. ISBN 0-87113-794-1. LCCN 2001018840.
3. ^ Norton, Trevor (2006). Underwater to Get Out of the Rain: a love affair with the sea. Da Capo Press. p. 191. ISBN 0-306-81487-0.
4. Ecott, Tim (2002). Neutral Buoyancy: Adventures in a Liquid World. London: Penguin. pp. 264–266. ISBN 9780802139078.
5. "Oceanography: Death in the Depths". Time. 28 February 1969. Archived from the original on 14 December 2008. Retrieved 14 April 2013.
6. Davis, Michael (1979). "Immersion hypothermia in scuba diving". South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society Journal. 9 (2). Archived from the original on 13 January 2013. Retrieved 14 April 2013.
7. Collette, BB (1996). "Results of the Tektite Program: Ecology of coral-reef fishes. In: MA Lang, CC Baldwin (Eds.) The Diving for Science…1996, "Methods and Techniques of Underwater Research"". Proceedings of the American Academy of Underwater Sciences Sixteenth Annual Scientific Diving Symposium, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Archived from the original on 15 April 2013.
8. ^ Nowlis, D. P.; Wortz, E. C.; Watters, H. (2 September 2013). "Tektite 2 habitability research program". NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS). Retrieved 11 November 2024.
9. "Dr. Joe MacInnis". www.drjoemacinnis.com. Retrieved 29 December 2011.
10. "Russian Military Set for A Record-Breaking Deep Dive, Russia's Specially Trained 'Aquanauts' Are Getting Ready for A Very Unusual, Taxing and Highly Dangerous Operation in The Depths of the Ocean". Asia Times. 11 March 2018.
11. ^ Top Ten Weather Disasters. The Weather Channel. 27 August 2016.
12. Sifferlin, Alexandra (3 December 2013). "Man Survives 60 Hours Under Water In Sunken Ship". Time. Retrieved 23 June 2016.
13. "Nigerian survives two days at sea, in underwater air pocket". Africa. BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation. 13 June 2013. Retrieved 23 June 2016.
14. Moran, Terry (3 December 2013). "Cook Survives 3 Days in Air Pocket of Sunken Ship Off Nigerian Coast". ABC News. Retrieved 23 June 2016.
15. Lallanilla, Marc (4 December 2013). "Undersea Miracle: How Man in Sunken Ship Survived 3 Days". LiveScience.com. Retrieved 23 June 2016.
16. "I Was Trapped Underwater For 3 Days". The Infographics Show. Retrieved 25 September 2024 – via YouTube.
17. "Great Survival Stories: Harrison Okene, the Accidental Aquanaut". Africa. Explorersweb. 5 March 2021. Retrieved 24 August 2024.

Book sources

• Flemming, N. C.; Max, M. D. (eds.). Code of Practice for Scientific Diving: Principles for the Safe Practice of Scientific Diving in Different Environments. UNESCO Technical Papers in Marine Science 53.
• Hellwarth, Ben (2012). Sealab: America's Forgotten Quest to Live and Work on the Ocean Floor. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-4745-0. LCCN 2011015725.
• Joiner, James T., ed. (2001). NOAA Diving Manual: Diving for Science and Technology, Fourth Edition. U.S. Department of Commerce, National Technical Information Service. ISBN 0-941332-70-5.
• Miller, James W.; Koblick, Ian G. (1995). Living and Working in the Sea. Best Publishing Company. ISBN 1-886699-01-1.
• Swanson, Jennifer (2018). Astronaut, Aquanaut: How Space Science and Sea Science Interact. Washington, DC: National Geographic Partners. ISBN 978-1-4263-2867-1. LCCN 2017020436.

External links

• Arctic IV (1975), documentary about Joseph MacInnis' Arctic dive
• Information article from Tass about Soviet aquanautic program

• Aquanauts