This is a great video from Mission 31 about the midway aquanaut switch, when Liz and I descended to Aquarius. Aquanauts Adam, Andy and Kip first decompressed in Aquarius and then re-surfaced with outstretched arms to the sun. Liz, Matt and I said goodbye to the surface and dove to the bottom of the sea. Liz and I "high-fived" in the water on the dive down together to Aquarius. I'm so excited I can hardly sleep ... today was incredible! We did so many things. We collected samples of plankton from the traps that we left out overnight, swam with three plankton tows, filmed three scenes for the documentary, set up the nighttime plankton traps and then, the highlight of my day, spent a few hours in the water capturing the stunning behavior of sea creatures in slow-motion with the Edgertronic camera. This is the first time this ultra high-speed camera has been used underwater, and It's amazing what we're able to see through the lens of this camera. We're learning things about animals' behaviors we never knew before! VIDEO OF THE DAY
WAIT, WHY IS THE VIDEO IN BLACK AND WHITE?We are filming with a monochrome camera because it's more light sensitive than it's color counterpart, and in high-speed photography in general (and underwater in particular) we are hard-pressed for light. Visible light just doesn't travel well underwater. However, Edgertronic loaned us a color camera, and it arrived today! Let's see if we can get it to work underwater! AQUARIUS VIEWPORT SWIM-BY
WOMEN IN SCIENCEI also posted this great video, Aquanauts Switch Mid-Mission from the Mission 31 production team showing Liz, Matt and I trading places with Adam, Andy and Kip to become fully- saturated aquanuts on the mission four days ago!
LIVING ON THE EDGE-RTRONIC *Clever title courtesy Liz Magee THE ARTS AT AQUARIUS, UNDERWATER BALLETWith the Edgertronic ultra high-speed camera, we can see things that happen in the blink of an eye in slow motion. It's like seeing the world at a different time-warp. It lets us see the underwater world, and it's creatures, a whole new way. Today we spend 6 hours total in the water, and we focused on exploring with the Edgertronic camera. We captured some stunning footage. Here's a video of bubbles coming from Liz's helmet, captured at 1000 frames per second. It's just amazing what you can discover, spending six hours in the water! Who knew bubbles moved so strangely like that? We also captured many videos of sea life, including coral cups feeding, crabs dancing (what are they doing?!), a sergeant major fanning it's eggs, and even a little zooplankton narrowly avoiding being eaten by a coral polyp. The other videos need some post-processing, but I'll distribute as soon as they're out. (And I'll post this video in a more accessible format when the internet is stronger tomorrow.) While Fabien and Ryan re-configured the camera for us inside the habitat, we had some time to play in the water. Here I'm performing some ballet (a grand pas de chat). Matt (second photo) did a handstand. Fellow aquanaut Matt Ferraro, a filmmaker with over 15 years in film production, has some more great footage of us working today, but you'll have to wait for that to come out in the documentary film! Congrats! DAY 20, LONGEST AQUARIUS MISSIONG'NIGHT FOR NOW ...I wish I had time to process (and finish downloading) the footage now to post, but I need to sleep. Tomorrow is another early morning dive. We'll spend most of the day collecting plankton samples, identifying sponges for the Ocean Genome Project, and welcoming former aquanauts Mark Patterson and Steven Price back into Aquarius.
7:00 AMLiz and I started our dive. Before every dive we spend about 10 minutes going over a checklist with Otter, who reads the checklist, and Ryan, who helps us put the Kirby Morgan dive helmet on. (My dive helmet post with Lady Gaga is here.) In going over the checklist, we check the functionality of various valves and emergency back-ups on the helmet. Every time everything works, as far as I know. The checklist can seem tedious, but I realize how important it is. I started thinking back to Atul Gawande's book The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right. I remember hearing that the medical profession, which suffers from human error, should really use checklists, but doctors just don't. I see why. They're annoying. And everything seems to work. But then again, the checklist seems like the only way to ensure all is as it's suppose to be. Not only do we catch anything not functioning, but routinely checking all the valves, etc. puts our mind at ease. I never have that feeling of, "Am I forgetting something...." I just focus on my dive, and I feel like the master of my equipment. This morning of our dive we collected samples in jars from the plankton traps (described in this previous post), and then stored the jars in a mesh bag that Northeastern divers will pick up in the afternoon. We also adjusted a tripod around a giant barrel sponge. The tripod suspends a sensor above the sponge, and the sensors measures the sponge metabolism. 9:00 AMWe returned to Aquarius from our first dive. I ate a late breakfast and change both the the lens and set-up on the Edgertronic camera in case we have extra time to use it on our afternoon dive. Met an astronaut, in the water!
Astronauts and Aquanauts on Jacques B'DaySpace and ocean and space explorers alike remembered Jacques Cousteau, the great explorer, on his birthday this month. See my post Happy Birthday Jacques Cousteau! for details of the celebration. OUTREACH, Great Questions
It's BIZARRE...To be able to see myself working, on the Mission 31 Live Cam. E.g., this is me the first night here, staying up late. At MIT Commencement, President Reif said, “MIT gradutes are naturally nocturnal, especially when chasing a fresh idea.” I guess it's true. More Grace Under Pressure blog at Aquarius Day 4: Science and Ballet Art Undersea. What a day! We came in from our last dive not too long ago (been in the ocean for many hours today researching!), had dinner, prepared tomorrow's dive plan, and now we need to sleep! I'll post a lengthier update when I can. Meanwhile, here's a video we recorded today with the Edgertronic camera. It shows a Christmas tree worm (Spirobranchus giganteus) closing at 1500 frames per second. The camera is inside a housing from The Sexton Corporation that so far is working beautifully. I also posted: What's Mission 31 About? This is Worth the Watch today.
What is historic Mission 31 (and why is it so special?) This great video from Fusion explains the story very well: "Living underwater gives ocean explorers an incredible advantage. Unlike normal surface diving, where a person can only stay underwater a few hours a day, Mission 31 aquanauts can be under the surface for 12 hours or more. This is because their bodies are saturated with nitrogen, allowing them to live at the same pressure as the water that surrounds them."
"To put it in perspective, it would take a normal diver six months to collect the amount of data that the aquanauts can obtain in 31 days."
"To say the least, Mission 31 is ... cool."
The cast of characters includes ... yours truly, Grace under no pressure :)
"This is a story about saving our waters, our oceans, our seas."
We Visited Jacques Cousteau's Grandson at the Bottom of the Ocean, article and video from This is Fusion.
Another great Mission 31 video is Splashdown: Aquanauts Switch Mid-Mission when when Liz, Matt and I splashed down to Aquarius.
EARLY MORNINGI woke up at 5:30am to organize gear going down to Aquarius, both my personal items and research equipment, and put together all the things that will stay at mission headquarters. It was a night of little sleep. Last night I was up late with the Edgertronic high speed camera we'll use for research. The underwater housing for the camera, from the Sexton Corporation, arrived yesterday and in the day's chaos I didn't have a chance to play with it until after dinner in the Aquarius habitat.
Just to be sure, I inspected the case for any possible damages from shipping. I had packed supplies for greasing the o-ring seals on the case. In addition, the housing had to be disassembled prior to being loaded into the pressurization pods down to Aquarius because otherwise I wouldn't be able to open the housing inside Aquarius; the air pockets inside would have remained at 1 atmosphere, while the outside of the case would be at Aquarius's 2.5 atmospheres. (This is also one of the big differences between being in a submarine, which generally remains at a regular atmospheric pressure, and Aquarius, currently the world's only undersea research lab, where we've saturated to the surrounding ocean's pressure and therefore can spend extended time outside the habitat conducting ocean research.) BON VOYAGE!
AQUANAUTS SEE THE SUN ... NO TURNING BACK
TRADING SPACES & WORKING UNDERWATERAs I'm writing this, I'm sitting at the Aquarius kitchen table. Dozens of fish swim by the window at by my side. It's unreal, like one of those visually-addicting screen savers. I'm torn between just watching them, and reflecting on the day. Briefly, today was busy; after getting situated in Aquarius, we made our dive plan then executed a 3.5 hour saturation dive setting up plankton traps, finding sponges, and observing fish. Northeastern divers met us in the water this afternoon to deliver some equipment. Specifically, we deployed a dozen plankton traps for Amanda's zooplankton research, and carefully recorded each location. We also collected the last of the environmental contamination sensors, and attempted to use a CTD cast (more about that later... when it's working). Finally, in our dive helmets we joined Fabien (from inside the habitat) on a Skype call with Northeastern University. How cool is that?! That's the longest dive I've ever done. Tomorrow I'll discuss more details on the research. After the long dive, I worked with our resident expert photographer Matt on the Edgertronic camera.
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Also, did you know you can paint underwater? Acclaimed artist Wyland visited Aquarius last Saturday. The Mission 31 crew just released this video about the work he made underwater!
MORE MEDICAL EXAMS
As all aquanauts, a few days before saturation we need to pass a check-out medical exam. I passed mine yesterday. The Navy doctor reviewed medications, took blood pressure, pulse, checked ears, and did a neurological exam. I didn't know what a neurological exam was before yesterday. It sounded scary, but it was checking that I could stick out my tongue, feel pressure on different points of my skin, and that various muscles and reflexes worked. Liz will do fine.
Finally, Happy Father's Day!
Jean-Michel Cousteau published a heartfelt piece about his extraordinary children, Celine and Fabien. Check it out. I also remembered to thank my father :) There are also a number of father's on the Mission 31 team. They got a special shoutout on our Instagram page.
Yesterday I ventured with Matt and Brian to the Content Keys, where we met with two guides who took us on an adventure through the Florida mangroves. Mangroves are trees that grow partially submerged in the ocean. It felt like we were filming a Discovery Channel special (like this one on mangroves). We were there because we wanted to learn more about the grouper from an expert, our guide Don, who formerly hunted the fish but now tries to protect them. Matt and I will attempt to film the grouper's unique feeding strike during our saturation on Mission 31. Mangroves are amazing plants. They thrive in the salt water either by filtering out the salt at their roots or secreting excess salt through their leaves. They form forests in the middle of the ocean that harbor juvenile fish, filter water, and serve as attachment points for other water-filtering marine organisms. In addition, animals, such as pelicans and other costal birds, find shelter in the branches. There are even stories of monkeys living in the Florida mangroves! We snorkeled in the mangroves for several hours. Swimming under their branches, it was an alien world, like a scene from Avatar. We saw grouper, many snapper, some horse shoe crabs, and tiny crabs. The sounds were like nothing I've heard before. I could hear branches creaking and snapping, the rush of the current, and some popping noises from fish. Matt and Brian used the fancy RED camera to film the experience in incredible quality. The RED camera has more than 5 times the number of pixels of the very best HD camera. You'll have to wait to see their footage -- it'll be worth the wait! | Intrepid M31 photographers Brian and Matt setting up the RED camera. Their footage will come out later; it's worth the wait! Samantha, our German shepherd mascot, retweeted this photo :) Our captain Mike knew the mangroves like the back of his hand. this was a good thing! The mangroves were like a thorny maze. |
This is what the mangroves looked like, although this isn't my photo. Credit floridarambler.com. Sometimes I'd look up and not see the end of our path. It'd be easy to get lost in the maze, but thankfully we had an excellent guide.
Mangrove Update
Update: Our guide Don just sent me a copy of July's National Geographic with a terrific piece with amazing photos about the Goliath Grouper in the mangroves that they've been working on for years. I'll write a separate post soon about his fascinating work and this interesting creature that can be up to 800 lbs and nine feet long! (added 6/21/14)
A REASON TO SMILE: Thank You Notes
This afternoon I got a very pleasant surprise in the mail. The students at Birches, whom I chatted with last week, sent me many thank you notes. It put a huge smile on my face! The letters have more excellent questions too. Kids are so curious! Have you seen anything cool? Have you swam with sea snakes? What other animals have you seen? Will you send me a 'pikshr'? My first visit with this school was in the fall, and it was great (blog post here).
Some Work, Some fun
The past few days I've also been helping prepare science research, so everything is ready for our saturation on June 17th. The Northeastern surface team, who has a fantastic blog here, started shipping their gear last week, and it's slowly arriving at base. One of the things I was most excited to receive was the plankton traps from graduate student Amanda Dwyer. On our first day in Aquarius, fellow aquanaut Liz and I will deploy a dozen of the traps over different regions of the coral reef. All traps are small, so they are minimally invasive. They will collect zooplankton that rise into the net. Each day and night we'll then collect samples from the net, and Amanda will analyze the results. She'll be able to tell the health of the reef from the samples, and learn more about the zooplankton's nocturnal behavior. Plankton are an incredible resource on earth; they provide at least half of the oxygen we breath! I'm excited to help learn more about their important role in our ecosystem. The tools for other research, including for the sponges DNA, coral-stress, and sponge metabolism studies, arrive this week as well. More on that to come! Other exciting news is that the underwater housing for the Edgertronic camera is on it's way here, thanks to the Sexton Corporation, who has amazingly designed, created, and tested a modular system for using the Edgertronic underwater. |
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M31 team member Billy found mascot Samantha (follow her exciting Twitter account!) at a serious moment at mission headquarters, reading papers about plankton, sponges, and coral reefs to prepare for Mission 31 science. Someone said that the world would be a better place if more dogs had twitter accounts.
Friday night (+Friday the 13th!) full moon celebration on the beach, complete with fire dancers, fireworks, and a Latin-African fusion band. I tried taking a photo of the moon with my phone, but it just looked like a flashlight hanging in the sky. | Beautiful! Did an interview on the beach yesterday for Univision TV. Couldn't imagine a better back drop! The only issue was that we sometimes had to wait for a paddle boarder to pass in the background :) | Also beautiful! Credit to Jeremy Childress at the Sexton Corporation, who made this underwater housing for the Edgertronic. He also connected the Edgertronic to a battery and screen that will fit inside the housing. |
Where would Jacques want to celebrate?
. . . the ocean! Pioneer explorer Jacques Yves Cousteau said, "The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever."
Today we celebrated under the sea in Aquarius what would have been Jacques' 104th birthday. In commemoration, we all wore red caps, like Jacques' team was known for. We also brought red cap-shaped cookies down to Aquarius, from our friends at Lucky 13 Bakery. |
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"From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free."--Jacques Cousteau
"The sea, the great unifier, is man's only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat." --Jacques Cousteau
"The sea, the great unifier, is man's only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat." --Jacques Cousteau
This was my first time at the Aquarius table! Until now, I'd only gone as far as the wet porch. It felt like home, as I've taken so many Skype-tours of the habitat, watched it for hours from the control desk, and studied every inch of it during training. Plus, it's such a small space that it doesn't take long to become well acquainted!
My visit to Aquarius today was a surface dive only, so we could spend only 45 minutes maximum in the habitat due to decompression. Time flew by! It was great to chat with Fabien and Kip, and briefly with Andy and Adam as they headed out for research. They're none the worse for wear -- cheerful and extra grateful for the cookies (a welcome respite from the freeze dried food). See Andy's video diary about why they tend to eat "astronaut food," and see this video about how we can send food from land. There'll be a video about today coming out soon; stay tuned!
My visit to Aquarius today was a surface dive only, so we could spend only 45 minutes maximum in the habitat due to decompression. Time flew by! It was great to chat with Fabien and Kip, and briefly with Andy and Adam as they headed out for research. They're none the worse for wear -- cheerful and extra grateful for the cookies (a welcome respite from the freeze dried food). See Andy's video diary about why they tend to eat "astronaut food," and see this video about how we can send food from land. There'll be a video about today coming out soon; stay tuned!
AFTERNOON SCIENCE
This afternoon, the Mission 31 production team shot a short video about how colors change as divers go deeper underwater. Photo credit to Mission 31/Nokia Lumia.
We also collected sensors for Northeastern's environmental contamination study. The sensors are powerful although they look vaguely like plastic bags floating on lines (image credit Mission 31/Billy Snook). They will detect even tiny pollutants, including PCBs, PAHs, and potentially dispersants from the BP oil spill.
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CONNECTING LAND AND SEA
Yikes! We arrived back to base at 4:30pm, just when I was suppose to leave for a talk at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami. Cutting it close. I quickly changed and left just in time to make the event. Thank you Bob Howard from the MIT Club of South Florida for the ride!
On the drive to FIU, I really enjoyed Bob Howard's stories of MIT from the 1960s. He talked about working on punch-card computers, getting drafted for the war, and then working at the Pentagon. It's pretty crazy we ended up meeting in the Keys! There was an impressive turn out for the talk. I was happy to see many young people in the audience; including a group from FIRST robotics, which brought back fond memories because FIRST introduced me to robotics as a high school student. Also attending were MIT Club of South Florida members, FIU students, and visiting coral reef scholars. The talk went well, despite experiencing every speaker's nightmare. My laptop crashed just before my talk without saving the last version of the presentation I'd prepared oh-so-carefully yesterday. Even though in my mind the slides weren't quite right, no one in the audience seemed to notice and everything went well. It was a good reminder to be prepared for the unexpected because things in life don't always go as planned. After introducing Mission 31 and Skyping with Andy in Aquarius, I spoke more broadly about ocean exploration. The audience was enthusiastic and asked many excellent questions, including details about aquanaut training and life underwater in the habitat. Others asked about my background in ballet and how I got started in robotics, which was through FIRST robotics, and how this organization influenced my career path! Thanks to Bob Howard, Gary Chin, and Aileen Soto for organizing the fantastic event! |
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"If you protect the ocean, you protect yourself."
Jean-Michel Cousteau, when he visited Fabien in Aquarius last weekend.
The fabulous Mission 31 production team just released this video, documenting Dr. Sylvia Earle and Jean-Michele Cousteau's visit to Aquarius. Both Dr. Earle and Cousteau are characters! Speaking of Cousteau... Tomorrow is Jacques Cousteau's birthday. We'll celebrate big-time!
Today Mission 31 team members Matt and Brian returned from the Amazon, where they were shooting a continuing project with Fabien Cousteau's sister Celine. You can see photos, showing how the Amazon has changed during the lifetimes of three Cousteau generations, in the ebook Return from the Amazon available in the iTunes Store. Matt and Brian told us the Amazon was scorching hot, over 105 degrees F. The 80-degree weather here in sunny Florida must now feel like a cool spring day! The intrepid explorers also shared stories of the bugs and difficulty in traveling around the Amazon. What an experience! I can't wait to hear more over dinner. Meanwhile, I continue preparing Mission 31 science research from topside. Today we sent out plankton nets for a research project designed by Northeastern graduate student Amanda Dwyer. I'm also counting down till saturation -- 7 more days! |
The Turtle Hospital
Last Friday I had the opportunity to visit the Turtle Hospital with production team member Billy Snook. I was completely blown away at the incredible organization. It pained me to see how turtles have suffered from human causes, even indirectly. For example, sea grass absorbs fertilizers that run off into the ocean that turtles eats. The chemical fertilizers can develop tumors called fibropapilloma that will slowly and painfully kill the turtle. If the fertilizers in our crops do that to turtles, what are they doing to us?
I posted this story to my Instagram. Thankfully the turtle made it into the hospital's care and is on the road to recovery. | This photo shows one of the recovered turtles; without the care of the Turtle Hospital this turtle would have died from human causes. Let's be optimistic! |
If you extra specially care about sea turtles, check out The Turtle Hospital (maybe even call or donate!). There's also a fantastic non-profit called the Sea Turtle Conservancy; I follow them on Facebook to stay up-to-date on all their work (and see pictures of sea turtles on my news feed.)
A DIVING DRONE
I forgot to tell this story. On Spalshdown Day, the Mission 31 production team smartly deployed quadcopters to capture aerial footage of the excitement. Well, there was some problem with one of the copters (never really understood what happened), and it fell into the ocean. Luckily, one of the Navy divers, Carter, without missing a beat, dove in and rescued the copter on a breath-hold dive to 10m. Amazing! Sometimes robots need the Navy to rescue them too. |
There's also blog posts: "Shellebrate" -- It's World Turtle Day! and Sea Life Just Fish? Think Polar Bears Too!
Happy World Oceans Day! Mission 31 and Aquarius, the only undersea research laboratory in the world, was the place to be for this year's celebration. Jean-Michel Cousteau and Dr. Sylvia Earle graced us with their presence, as well as Vampire-actor and conservationist Ian Somerhalder (his foundation) and former aquanaut Greg Stone (his TED talk). We celebrated with visits to the crew in Aquarius (Fabien, Adam, Andy, Otter, Kip and Ryan) and with a special event at Islamorada's History of Diving Museum.
My World Oceans Day Promise is to engineer technology and help make policy to protect our oceans from climate change, pollution, and overfishing. This photo, just released by Mission 31, is from training. I'm surprised I can recognized everyone in their gear. From left to right, it's Kip, Fabien, Andy, Liz, Adam, and me.
Today I graduated from MIT! I'm incredibly grateful for the many, many people who helped me get to this point. Since I didn't graduate from high school, this is was my first degree (B.Sc. in Mechanical and Ocean Engineering). Even though I missed the ceremony, I followed along the live feed and flipped the "brass rat" class ring with the rest of my classmates. Someone put a model of Doc Edgerton's iconic milk drop image on their cap at commencement. I've been working with the MIT Edgerton Center (blog post here) to use their remarkable high-speed camera for Mission 31. With this camera, we'll try to capture Goliath Grouper's unique feeding behavior, hoping to validate an unproven theory that they use the sound of a collapsing cavitation bubble formed in their head as a weapon to stun prey. We should produce some amazing footage if all works. We tested the Edgertronic camera by filming the M31 German Shepherd mascot "feeding" on milk (video here). Doc Edgerton also worked with Jacques Cousteau. The commencement speeches were inspiring, such as MIT President's Reif's charge below: | |
"Whatever road you choose to travel, I want you to reject the idea that what you see in front of you is the best that we human beings can do. I want you to see the status quo as nothing more than ... a place to start, because you know we can do better. ... More daring and more passionate. More rigorous, playful, and ambitious. More humble, more respectful, more generous, and more kind." -- from MIT President Reif's commencement charge to graduates today |
Right now I'm excited for ...
- World Oceans Day, which is Sunday
- The Edgertronic high-speed camera arriving with its new waterproof housing from Sexton Corporation next week (Doc Edgerton)
- Ian Sommerhalder visiting tomorrow (Ian's foundation)
- Dinner with Sylvia Earle and Jean-Michel Cousteau (tonight!)
Today I was happily back in the water. Billy Snook, Tom, and I shot two short videos explaining basic "underwater" science concepts. The first video was about how colors change as you descend in the water column (reds become dark, blues look basically the same -- I'll miss the color red while living underwater!). For the second video, we took a balloon from Aquarius to the surface, showing how the differences in pressure will inflate the balloon.
REVISITING THE BIRCHES SCHOOL
On the boat this afternoon, I was delighted to reconnect via Skype with the Birches Elementary students (kindergarden through 3rd grade) about Mission 31. I met the Lincoln, MA, students last fall and explained what it's like to be an aquanaut (blog post about that). They asked so many excellent questions! Today they asked me when I'll start living underwater (June 17th!) and what training was like. I was impressed they'd seen all of Mission 31's YouTube videos and, of course, had more excellent questions, such as:
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The also asked if I had been bitten or stung by a jellyfish, and the answer is yes! (stung, that is; you can't really get bitten by a jelly). One of the Navy divers on our boat shared an exciting story of a jellyfish attack that certainly peaked their interest.
MEET THE OTHER AQUANAUTS
The production team, including Marc and Toby, edited these video diaries from the aquanauts currently down below. In addition to the three profiled below, Fabien and two technicians, Otter and Ryan, make up the present Aquarius crew.
Adam | Andy | Kip |
Tomorrow is a big day for me. I'll graduate from MIT! Since I didn't graduate from high school, this will be my first graduation. Even though I won't make the commencement ceremony in person, I'll be following the live feed, flip the "brass rat" with the rest of my classmates, and have a mini-celebration here in the Keys.
UNDERSEA RESEARCH
Aquanaut scientists Adam and Andy are currently doing undersea research for the first part of the mission, and Liz and I will switch with them on June 17. To follow along with the undersea research, there's information on the Mission-31 website, video channel, and aquanaut scientist Adam Zenone's blog Zen1 for 31.The Northeastern team is also keeping a topside M31 science blog at View from the Surface. |
IF YOU FIND THIS ...
Every morning at 5:30 a.m., Adam and Andy set-up the Goliath Grouper decoys (in the photo above) before the real grouper (and rest of us!) awake. Adam's blog post describes about how one got away! Adam was forced to simply watch as one large grouper decoys slowly slipped upward after it crossed his dive "ceiling" -- the height he cannot pass due to saturation. I can only imagine being so close, but unable to swim after it. Adam describes more details about the research he and Andy are conducting in his blog, including why he's chatting and collaborating with Norway about research while underwater! Please keep a lookout for the grouper decoy and become a part of M31 research! |
GIGABYTES OF OCEAN RESEARCH
Every two days, Adam and Andy generate 800 gigabytes of undersea research data; that's a lot of data (yea!). The prefix giga means 10 to the 9th power; so one gigabyte is 1,000,000,000 bytes. They only use solid state drives in the habitat even though spinning drives are cheaper because the pressure differences undersea squeeze the spinning drive too much. So, Adam and Andy pod their solid state hard drives to me from below , and I transfer the data to spinning drives. Keep the ocean data coming, guys! |
LET'S TALK ABOUT THE OCEAN
It's wonderful to see so many students and teachers excited about our oceans. There's lot's of outreach everyday via M31 Skype-in-the-Classroom and other sources. There's also a Mission 31 curriculum for grades K-12 to bring back lessons "from the seafloor to the surface."
LASTLY . . .
SURFACE DIVES TOMORROW!
I can't wait till tomorrow. I'm helping film 30-second science clips demonstrating basic physics concepts underwater. More on that later! For now, good night.
MISSION 31 SCIENTISTS
The Mission 31 aquanaut scientists will trade mid-way through the mission. Currently Adam and Andy are in the habitat with Fabien and camera crew. Liz and I will switch with them on June 17th. I can't wait! While topside, I'm supporting the crew in any way necessary, including prepping experiments, and helping with surface dives and outreach. |
PREPPING RIGS FOR OCEAN RESEARCH
Topside I assembled cinder-block/float rigs for the environmental contamination study. In this research, we'll deploy and recover sensors that absorb and measure environmental contaminants, including PCBs, PAHs, and potentially even dispersants left from the BP oil spill. (A Mission 31 science overview is in post 5/24/14.) The rig set-up is basically a rope attached to a cinder block on one end, and a styrofoam sphere float on the other. The rope will carry sensors that look like thin clear film and must remain frozen until deployed. Early in the morning, I sent the prepared rigs (in a cooler) to the aquanauts to place on the reef.
These are the prepped rigs and supplies I sent to Aquarius. The cooler contains the contamination sensors wrapped in foil. The foil and cold temperature keep the sensors free from other contaminants (that would mess up the study). The styrofoam spheres toward the back of the photo are the floats that pull the rope upward with the sensors. | |
Brian Helmuth and his team of graduate researchers from the Marine Science Research Center at Northeastern University arrived from beautiful Nahant outside of Boston (see blog post 4/30/14) and started a topside blog called, "View From the Surface." I like what Brian says in the blog about Mission 31 connecting people with the ocean:
"The science we will be doing on this Mission will be cutting edge . . . But what excites me most is that Mission 31 may start to rekindle that lost connection to the sea, so that some day my daughters can look back and say, 'Wow, humans really came close to messing things up. But somehow we found our connection to nature just in time to turn things around.'" -- Brian Helmuth |
HABITAT HAPPENINGS: IN THE SEA
Can you imagine this being the view out of your living room window? Fabien tweeted these images on Day 1. Aquarius is definitely a "room" with an amazing view.
For a summary of the undersea research, one of the aquanaut scientists currently saturated, Adam Zedone, is keeping a blog at Zen1 for 31 about his and Andy's work and adventures. I've enjoyed learning more about their coral, grouper, and predator/prey research. In this video, Adam not only shares details about their experiments, but he also tells of an extended 3-hour excursion in which he caught a "nap" on the seafloor in his Kirby Morgan dive helmet and swam with fish he got to "know" (that seems like an amazing experience, getting to "know" sea life in their natural environment).
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HABITAT HAPPENINGS: INSIDE
Aquarius' air conditioning broke for awhile, so the temperature and humidity soared to 90 degrees F and 100%, respectively in the habitat. According to Adam, It felt like a hot steamy sauna. Mission control, however, was able to fix it within the day. The habitat fare on Aquarius will be freeze dried food. Fabien tweeted that his "sense of taste seemed dull or maybe food is." Why freeze dried food undersea? Because a cooktop or oven flame would be very dangerous given the increased oxygen levels in the air at that pressure. Andy has a video about this titled, "Science and Dinner." Want to see what's going on in and around Aquarius? You can view the mission -- anytime 24/7 (even now!) -- via the live feed to the habitat on the Mission 31 website. Try it!
SPECIAL GUESTS, LIVE FEED & LESSONS
What attracted me most to Mission 31, In addition to the scientific research, was the possibility of exciting hope and passion in people of all ages about our oceans. Students of all ages are Skyping daily with Mission 31 aquanauts to learn more about the ocean via M31 Skype-in-the-Classroom and various news outlets. In addition, almost every day we'll have VIP visitors who dive to the habitat and stay at the seafloor for about 45 minutes maximum to avoid having to decompress. One of the visitors that I helped topside, TV personality Katie Linendoll, wrote this CNN report from her visit.
"The idea is to spark the interest of a population of people who haven't previously gotten excited about the ocean—and to change the way they think about the planet." -- Fabien Cousteau |
When you think marine mammals, do you think polar bears? I didn't until I learned more. Polar bears are the only bear considered a marine mammal. Their scientific name, Ursus maritimus, translates to "maritime bear." Born in snow dens, they spend most of their time on the frozen sea, which they use as a platform for hunting seals. Mission 31 will study climate change effects on some tropical creatures. Although the Florida Keys have no polar bears, ocean health and climate change research impacts all sea life, from zooplankton (microscopic animals) to polar bears (up to 1,200 lbs). Want to know more? 20 Interesting Facts about Polar Bears. A greater understanding of our oceans is needed at this critical time of dwindling resources and increased pollution. The oceans affect more life than we think. |
Ocean Food Chain, Top to Bottom
Specifically, Mission 31 experiments will study climate change effects on zooplankton and coral reefs, marine life found in the Keys. An overview of all M31 science research is at blog post 5/24/14. Polar Bears International, the world's leading conservation group for polar bears, will celebrate World Oceans Day on June 8 in honor of all ocean life, large and small, even the ones that don't first come to mind! | |
World Oceans Day
World Oceans Day day will be a big day for Mission 31. Media and celebrities, including Dr. Sylvia Earle and actor Ian Somerhalder, will visit us in the Keys and there'll be a celebration underwater (what better place to celebrate?). Up to World Ocean Day, I'll post daily about the wonders of the ocean, the current issues it's facing, and how we are bringing attention to those during Mission 31. Stay tuned!
More blog at What's Mission 31 About? This is Worth the Watch.
6:00 AM
I woke up to a dozen text messages asking for spur-of-the-moment interviews with various news media, which I didn't expect. What a way to wake up! Although I couldn't get to reef base in time for big pre-splashdown buzz, I was in time to catch the aquanauts entering Aquarius live. Reef base ("mission control") was chaotic. Various news media, including The Weather Channel, CNN, and NBC were there to cover the splashdown, while Aquarius' operations managers focused on making sure the aquanauts safely entered the habitat and everything went as planned. A couple of news articles from today are here: The Weather Channel and NBC.
Splashdown
At mission control, there were a large group of people, including media, huddled around a computer monitor waiting for Fabien, Andy, and Adam to enter the habitat. Fabien had a huge smile as he entered Aquarius, his home for the next 31 days. I'm looking forward to joining with Liz on the 17th! Meanwhile, I'll be preparing scientific research, supporting with surface dives, and helping with ocean outreach. We all passed training and the mission has officially begun!
Noon
After things settled down, I joined our publicist Amy, plus Jen Carfagno and Donna from The Weather Channel for a lunch at the fabulous Cheeca Resort. It was a beautiful get-away. After lunch, I moved my things to the mission headquarters house so full-time Aquarius operations staff could take my room near reef base.
Splashdown Party AT Diving Museum
I then joined the topside crew for our Mission 31 Splashdown Party at the Florida Key's History of Diving Museum. What an event! Author Dirk Cussler, the official DOXA historian, a Leonardo DiCaprio look-a-like, and a film producer, among others, celebrated with the team.
Get to know the aquanauts!
How did Fabien pick the team of aquanauts? "I picked [the] team by the great things that they can do," Fabien said in a tweet via @Mission_31. The Mission 31 website has a bio for each aquanaut on the team.
I hope to complete podcasts highlighting each of the aquanauts, including the great topside science researchers. In the meantime, CNET released short interviews with each of the Mission 31 aquanauts in the article: Deep thoughts from aquanauts: Meet the Mission 31 undersea team. Here's mine below:
It's the evening before M31 splashdown. Today the production team released a video about how the habitat is being prepared for the aquanauts. It really captures the energy around Aquarius. Check it out!
Video about the final preparations on Aquarius; tomorrow is splashdown for Fabien, Andy, Adam and Kip! Liz and I will switch with Adam and Andy on the 17th.
Meanwhile we aquanauts parted ways temporarily. Liz flew back to Boston today so she can train the Northeastern research divers before returning to the Keys when she and I saturate. Andy, Adam, and I had an amazing breakfast at Harriette's Restaurant in Key Largo with some of Andy's research mates, before heading to their research base. We also stopped by the hardware store for some last-minute research prep, and dropped off final supplies at the reef base for transportation to Aquarius tomorrow. At the base, we showed a Weather Channel representative around so she could prepare media coverage for tomorrow.
Back at mission headquarters, it's a little chaotic. Fabien managed to complete a whirlwind of back-to-back interviews for various news sources, including the Weather Channel, Sky News, NBC and others (all listed on the M31 Facebook page). I hope he gets time to relax before splashdown at 10 am tomorrow! Meanwhile the boys and I are planning to spend the evening with popcorn and a movie as they savor their last moments on land (for the next two weeks). We already miss Liz! Can't wait till she returns on the 15th.
It's hard to comprehend all that's happened in the last two weeks. It's been a whirlwind of adventure, meeting new people, learning, and jumping (literally) out of my comfort zone. I can't believe how time has flown by; already, we're done with training! Today we dove for a little over an hour, getting in final practice with the full face masks and the double tanks. We also did an underwater photo shoot with the ultra-high definition RED camera, for Fabien's documentary film. The RED camera has revolutionized photography with a sensor that has more than 5 times the number of pixels of the very best HD camera. RED: The Camera that Changed Hollywood. Our final debriefing was sentimental. Roger, chief of Aquarius operations, told us more people have gone into space than have lived underwater, so what we're doing is very special. We have now a unique opportunity to bring ocean science and public awareness to a new level. It's tremendously exciting! Fabien said it only hit him yesterday that this was finally real, really happening. At last, there's no turning back! In the afternoon, a research team from the Florida Institute of Technology (FIU) showed us how to use their sonar imaging system. This system will help record and monitor fish, and our FIU researchers will use the system to record fish behavior in response to predators. Splashdown is in 48 hours! Tonight we'll celebrate, somehow. |
Today we dove in full-face Kirby Morgan dive masks that we'll use on Mission31. They were designed exclusively for military use, but Fabien secured them for our team. The masks are manufactured by Kirby Morgan, just like our dive helmets, so both have the same name. They look a little scary (or fashionable... depending on your perspective), similar looking to gas masks, I think.
The full-face masks were tricky to get used to at first, especially getting them on and clipping the regulator into the side. But once I got the hang of the mask, it was nice to be able to relax my jaw while diving and not have to grip a regulator in my mouth, and to be able to breathe normally from my nose.
Underwater Choreography & Dive Drills
We practiced many dive drills again today. Remembering basic diving drills is a lot like remembering dance choreography, such as . . .
The drills were complicated at first, but now we can all do them without even thinking, with and without our masks!
Manatee at the Dock
When we returned to the aquanaut house, we had the pleasure of meeting a manatee by our dock! I've always wanted to "meet" a manatee, and this one was so friendly! She stared at us and rolled around for quite a bit before heading below the dock. This evening at mission headquarters, we met with a representative from Nokia, one of our sponsors. She showed us some cool features of our new phones, including its professional-quality camera and image editing capabilities. We also finally got to meet Mission31's publicist, Amy Summers, who visited today. It's so nice to meet the face behind so many emails! |
Serious Training . . .
Today was fun (...even though we were reviewing some serious emergency situations). We started in the classroom reviewing drills we'd do in the water, including how to use the marine VHF radios and safety sausages (brightly-colored, inflatable buoy columns) we'll always have with us underwater. We all got a little competitive during the emergency drills, which kept everyone's attention piqued. In the first drill, we practiced navigating with a compass. To make sure we weren't cheating, the instructors put towels over our heads (Mission 31 monogrammed towels, of course), so we had to "blindly" rely on only our compass heading to get where we wanted to go. I'm sure this looked ridiculous to anyone who passed by, but we're all now great at navigating! |
We also drilled a worst case scenario in which both divers are disoriented and lost their masks. Our goal was to return safely to the habitat. To do this, we attached our secondary reel of rope to a stationary point on the seafloor and used the line to swim in a circle (in a constant radius) around the stationary point looking for one of the neon excursion lines that led back to the habitat (all without masks). Initially the drill was complicated; but practicing it first on land really helped. In the water, Liz and I nailed it. Liz described in her Girls's Rule blog post: "It was a good feeling to be on the same page as my dive buddy Grace, especially considering we are about to spend over 20,000 minutes underwater together! I have a feeling that by the end of the Mission, Grace and I will be able to read each other's minds underwater."
Billy Snook, a member of the Mission 31 production team, filmed us underwater today with a Nokia (one of our sponsors) Lumia 1020 camera. Thanks to Billy and Nokia for the photos and video clips bleow!
Billy Snook, a member of the Mission 31 production team, filmed us underwater today with a Nokia (one of our sponsors) Lumia 1020 camera. Thanks to Billy and Nokia for the photos and video clips bleow!
Here's a video of today's underwater training
and here's some sea life we saw today
| |
and photos from the boat
Two Aquarius dive masters named Otter and Otto ran our training today. We again started in the classroom and finished in the water. We took a virtual tour of Aquarius and then had safety briefings on emergency drills for the habitat. Emergency situations for the habitat include getting lost, running out of air, receiving contaminated air, flooding, and fire. A fire underwater might seem like a firefighter's dream, but it's not; a fire could devastate Aquarius wiring and/or the habitat from inside where there is 2.5 times more oxygen than on the surface. We'll run through habitat safety drills again throughout this week.
This afternoon we dove with double tanks again near Aquarius. Double air means more time to work in the water, so we'll use double tanks whenever we're not using the dive helmets. Otter and Otto ran us through the drills we discussed earlier in the classroom, including extending and recalling excursion lines (i.e., ropes we can follow back to the habitat), searching for a lost buddy diver, buddy breathing while swimming, and turning on/off all the valves on our tanks with our masks off. We all did ok. It's a bit hard to get used to swimming with two heavy tanks on your back plus all the extra gear, including two reels, knife, extra regulator, slate, radio, strobe light, and a safety sausage (an inflatable, bright-colored column).
In the evening we headed back to mission headquarters for home-made pizza! Tomorrow we'll train longer underwater with more mask-off drills, so I expect my eyes to hurt.
Author
Grace Young (B.S., MIT, Ph.D, Oxford) is an ocean engineer, aquanaut, and explorer currently working at X. She lived underwater as a scientist and engineer on Fabian Cousteau’s Mission 31, and is a National Geographic Explorer.
Blog Highlights:
1. No Engineer is an Island
2. Mission 31 Highlights
3. Sailing Across the Atlantic
3. Return to CERN
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