Tag Archives: scott carpenter

[October 14, 1965] Taking a Deep Dive (the SEALAB project)


by Kaye Dee


The SEALAB II habitat on the dockside ready for its official launching ceremony

In my article at the end of August about the Gemini 5 mission, I mentioned the unique phone call that Gemini 5 commander Gordon Coper made from space to his fellow Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter, who was working aboard the SEALAB II experimental underwater habitat. Carpenter is the first astronaut to also serve as an aquanaut, and the two roles are clearly related, since they both involve operations in dangerous, barely explored environments, isolated in small, confined craft. Since the third (and last) crew in SEALAB II has just completed their undersea mission, I thought it would be interesting to look at the SEALAB programme this month.

Getting Saturated

The SEALABs have been developed by the United States Navy to research the technique of saturated diving and enable a better understanding of the psychological and physiological stresses that affect people living in confined isolation for extended periods of time. This research into long-duration isolation is obviously relevant to space exploration as well as undersea activities.

Saturation diving is a technique that reduces the risk of decompression sickness (“the bends”) for divers working at great depths. If a diver breathes inert gasses, while in an environment pressurised to match the intended depth of a dive, the body will become saturated with the gasses, reaching a state of equilibrium once the blood and body tissues have absorbed all they can. Once this occurs, a diver’s decompression time will be the same whether he stays underwater for hours, days, weeks, or even months. This means that if a diver lives in a suitably pressurised habitat, he can work underwater for long periods and only have to undergo decompression once, at the end of his assignment.

The Genesis of SEALAB

SEALAB has its origins in a research programme by Captain George F. Bond, a US Navy physician. In 1957, Dr. Bond began Project Genesis at the Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory in Connecticut with the aim of demonstrating that divers could withstand prolonged exposure to different breathing gases at multi-atmosphere pressures. The first two phases of Project Genesis were carried out in 1957 and '58. This involved exposing animals, including rats, goats and monkeys to saturation using a variety of breathing gasses. Dr. Bond happened to meet Jacques Cousteau, the famous French oceanographer, when he gave a talk about the concept of saturation diving in 1957 and the two men became good friends. They co-operated on their diving research, and Cousteau even contributed some ideas to SEALAB II.


"Papa Topside", Dr. George F. Bond, (left) on the SEALAB I support ship with Argus Island in the background

NASA Keeps the Research Going

Despite his promising results, the Navy was not interested in funding the human trials that Dr. Bond needed to progress his research. Then, in 1962, NASA stepped in and funded the human research programme because it was interested in using a mixed -gas spacecraft atmosphere (either nitrogen-oxygen or helium-oxygen) for the Apollo programme – although it has now decided to use a simpler low-pressure oxygen atmosphere for the Apollo spacecraft, despite its potential fire danger.

Between 1962 and 1963, Capt. Bond, with the help of three volunteer divers, experimented with varying gas mixtures of oxygen, nitrogen and helium. One volunteer, Chief Quartermaster Robert A. (“Bob”) Barth took part in all these experiments and went on to become a member of the crews of SEALAB I and II.

"Papa Topside" and SEALAB I

By 1963, Capt. Bond’s team had collected enough data for the Navy to initiate its “Man in the Sea” programme, which would include an experimental habitat, dubbed SEALAB. Dr. Bond serves as the Senior Medical Officer and principal investigator of the SEALAB programme. The SEALAB I crew nicknamed him “Papa Topside”, for being always available on the support ship that kept station above the undersea habitat.

SEALAB I was a cigar-shaped chamber, 40 feet long and 10 feet in diameter. It was constructed from two converted steel floats and held in place with axles from railway cars. The lab had two portholes on each side and two open manholes in the bottom, but water didn’t enter because the pressure inside the chamber was the same as the surrounding water. SEALAB I used a helium-oxygen atmosphere that caused its crew to develop funny, squeaky voices that made them sound like a garbled Alvin the Chipmunk! The habitat was linked to its surface support ship by a Submersible Decompression Chamber, that served as a lift (elevator) between the two. Cables carried electricity, compressed gas, fresh water, communications, and atmosphere sampling lines between SEALAB and the support ship.


The quarters were pretty cramped and uncomfortable on board SEALAB I

First tested in the waters off Panama City, Florida, SEALAB I was lowered to 193ft into the Gulf of Mexico. It was then moved 26 miles southwest of Bermuda and lowered to a depth of 192ft, beside a US Navy research tower named “Argus Island”.

SEALAB I was both a habitability study and an experiment in developing safe decompression procedures for saturation diving. It had a crew of four aquanauts, including former experimental subject Bob Barth. They began their submerged sojourn on 20 July 1964, which was intended to last three weeks. The team investigated the effects of nitrogen narcosis on cognition, tried out the characteristics of the new “Neoprene” foam wet suit and performed many other performed physical and biological experiments. These included using ultrasonic beacons, current meters, and an anti-shark cage, as well as attempting to grow plants in the helium atmosphere.

Unfortunately, the SEALAB I mission had to be aborted after 11 days, due to an approaching hurricane. The support ship attempted to lift the habitat by crane from the ocean floor while slowly decompressing the divers (rising 1 foot every 20 minutes), but the churning sea caused the habitat to sway dangerously back and forth. As a result, the crew were transferred from the habitat to a small emergency decompression chamber and brought to the surface within minutes. 


An amazing underwater shot of the emergency decompression chamber coming to the rescue of the SEALAB I crew

Despite being cut short, SEALAB I was a major success, testing and proving the concept of saturation diving. Many lessons learned from SEALAB I would be applied in the development of its successor-SEALAB II. This included better solutions for raising and lowering the habitat (after two early attempts that dropped it!), lower humidity, improved umbilicals, and a reduction in the gear the divers needed to wear and store in the habitat. A helium voice unscrambler was also developed to improve communications with the aquanauts, because the changes that the gas made in their voices made them almost unintelligible.


The crew of SEALAB I with Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter, who had originally planned to join their team. (left to right) Gunner's Mate First Class Lester E. Anderson; Lieutenant Robert E. Thompson; Astronaut M. Scott Carpenter, Chief Hospital Corpsman Sanders W. Manning; Chief Quartermaster Robert A. Barth

SEALAB II

SEALAB II is a big advance on its predecessor. Constructed in a naval dockyard in California, it is 57 feet long and 12 feet in diameter, with a small “conning tower”: I’ve heard someone describe it as looking like a “railway tank car, without the wheels”. It has eleven viewing ports and two exits. SEALAB II is also much better equipped, with hot showers, a built-in toilet (I wonder what they used on SEALAB I?), laboratory equipment and a fridge. The gas mixture used onboard is 77-78%helium, 18% nitrogen, and 3-5% oxygen at a pressure of 103 psi, which is seven times that of Earth's atmosphere! SEALAB I found that helium chilled the habitat uncomfortably, so SEALAB II has been fitted with heating coils in the deck to combat the cold. Air conditioning has also been included in this habitat, to reduces the humidity.

A new support ship was provided for SEALAB II, equipped with a Deck Decompression Chamber and a Pressurised Transfer Capsule, used to transport the aquanauts from the surface to the habitat. And, of course, Papa Topside was there, presiding over the experiment.


Inside the Tiltin' Hilton. This team photo of the first SEALAB II crew pokes fun at the habitat's slight tilt. Team leader Scott Carpenter is in the centre of the photo.

In August 1965, the habitat was placed at a depth of 205 feet in the La Jolla Canyon off the coast of California. The location has earned it the nickname of the "Tiltin' Hilton" because it was placed on a sloped part of the ocean floor, giving it a six-degree tilt and a slight cant to port. The first SEALAB II crew, consisting of 10 divers, swam down to the habitat to take up residence on August 28. One of those divers was Mercury astronaut M. Scott Carpenter, who has joined the SEALAB program on leave from NASA.

Astronaut Aquanaut

Carpenter became interested in the SEALAB program after meeting Jacques Cousteau in 1963. He originally planned to be a member of the SEALAB I crew, but was injured in a motorcycle accident during training and so was unable to participate in that experiment. But he became the commander of the first two teams to use SEALAB II, spending 30 days living on the ocean floor. SEALAB II has hosted three crews of ten men, each of 15 days duration. Altogether 28 divers occupied SEALAB II between August 28 and October 10, with Carpenter and Bob Barth both part of two crews.


Originally a Naval aviator, then an astronaut, now Scott Carpenter has added to his resume as the team leader of the first two SEALAB II crews

The SEALAB programme seems to have been a bit jinxed for Carpenter: his right index finger was wounded by the toxic spines of a scorpion fish. In addition to his conversation with Gemini 5, soon after his arrival on SEALAB II, during his time in decompression at the end of his mission, Carpenter also took part in another special telephone call, this time from President Lyndon Johnson. Since Carpenter was calling from a decompression chamber with a helium-oxygen atmosphere, his "chipmunk voice" was almost unintelligible as a helium voice unscrambler was not available! 

The cold water off the Californian coast has been a real test for the aquanauts, along with poor underwater visibility. Even with its heating coils and air conditioning, SEALAB II still experienced high humidity and cold, with the temperature having to be raised to 86°F to ward off the chill. Nevertheless, the aquanauts conducted many physiological experiments and tasks, including testing new tools, methods of salvage and trying out an experimental electrically heated drysuit.

Dolphin Delivery

The Navy Marine Mammal Program also supported SEALAB II, assigning one of its bottlenose dolphins, named Tuffy, to assist the SEALAB crews. Tuffy’s Navy trainers attempted to teach the dolphin useful skills, such as delivering supplies from the surface to SEALAB, or carrying items from one aquanaut to another. Tuffy was apparently not up to the standard of that famous TV dolphin, Flipper, but I’ve heard that he will also be assigned to the SEALAB III mission when that takes place, so the Navy must have been happy enough with his performance.


Tuffy the Navy dolphin, at work during the SEALAB II programme. Wonder if he'll get a TV series of his own some day?

Third time continues the charm?

The third, and last, crew to serve on SEALAB II departed the habitat on October 10, marking the conclusion of a very successful experimental programme. SEALAB I and II have been a resounding success and the knowledge gained from these expeditions will certainly help to improve the techniques of saturation diving and, consequently, the safety of deep-sea diving and rescue. I’ll be watching the future SEALAB III mission, when it arrives, with interest!






[May 24, 1962] Adrift in Two Oceans (The Flight of Aurora 7)


by Gideon Marcus

They say things get tedious in repetition.  Well, I can assure you that at no point during Scott Carpenter's three-orbit flight, planned to be a duplicate of predecessor John Glenn's, was I in the least bit bored.  In fact, of the six manned space shots, this was the most moving for me.  Since the launch this morning from the East coast of Florida, a couple of hours after dawn, I've been hooked to the television and radio, engaged to a greater degree than ever before.

Perhaps it's the thoughtful, enigmatic nature of Carpenter, a contrast to the gung ho Glenn, the taciturn Shepard, the consummate test pilot Grissom.  Maybe it's the fact that Carpenter's flight had its fair share of drama (but then, so did Glenn's).  It could well be that, now that Glenn has set the template for space travel, I could spend time contemplating what it all meant.

Certainly, NASA wanted to get the most out of the flight out of Aurora 7.  Its pilot was smothered with tasks, each of them taking longer than scheduled.  First, there were the pictures to take.  Carpenter, cramped into a cockpit barely larger than that of the navy planes he used to fly for a living, fumbled to load film of the special space camera.  Then he had to make haste to spin the little Mercury spacecraft around so as to get good pictures of the horizon and ground features of interest.  By the end of Orbit One, half of the ship's fuel was gone.

During the second orbit, Carpenter's suit began to overheat.  Sweat dripping into his eyes, the astronaut deployed a parti-colored beachball.  It was supposed to trail behind the Mercury, providing data on the density of the rarefied atmosphere at that height, as well as the reflectivity of light in orbit.  Well, it never quite inflated.  The wilted thing followed along dispiritedly behind Aurora 7 for the next few hours.

This is not to say that Carpenter was having a bad time.  From his first exuberant exclamation upon becoming weightless, it was clear the astronaut was enjoying himself.  He got to eat the first full meal in space…from tubes: one of peaches, and one of beef and vegetables.  And, for a blessed four-and-a-half hours, the heavy space suit weighed nothing at all.  Even overtasked, Carpenter felt free as a bird, even in his tiny, spacecraft-shaped cage.  The dark sky framed three sunrises and three sunsets, punctuated by flurries of the same fireflies that accompanied Glenn in his flight (the astronaut believes they are ice particles shaken from the capsule). 

Fun, to be sure, but at the end of the third orbit, Carpenter was in a pickle.  Almost out of fuel, the ship misaligned thanks to a balky thruster, and the window for firing his retrorockets sliver-thin, the astronaut fired his braking thrusters a few seconds late.  For half an hour, first in the shuddering initial reentry, and then in the chest crushing crashing through the atmosphere, culminating in the gentle sway beneath parachutes before splashdown in the Atlantic, Carpenter had no idea where he would end up.

Neither did the recovery fleet.  In fact, Carpenter landed some 250 miles away from where he was supposed to.  This did not bother the philosophical spaceman, who spent the next hours relaxing on his inflatable raft, sitting in pleasant companionship with a little black fish nearby.  When the boats of the U.S.S. Intrepid finally arrived, hours later, Carpenter was completely calm.  In fact, like a good guest, he offered them some of his food. 

Aside from a little dehydration (he'd lost seven pounds in space!) Carpenter was in tip-top shape.  He has since been whisked off to Grand Turk island for extensive post-flight evaluation, and it is my understanding he got quite the hug from Glenn upon arrival.  There he will stay for a couple of days before he gets to make a tour of his home town of Boulder, Colorado. 

The folks there must be proud of their native son who has ascended far beyond the lofty Rockies.  I know I am.

[Apr. 30, 1962] Common Practice Period (April Spaceflight Round-up)


by Gideon Marcus

The radio plays Classical music on the FM band now. 

The difference is palpable.  Bach and Mozart on the AM band were tinny and remote.  It was almost as though the centuries separating me and the composers had been attenuating the signal.  This new radio band (well, not so new, but newly utilized) allows transmissions as clear as any Hi-Fi record set could deliver. 

Don't get me wrong; I still listen to the latest pop hits by The Shirelles and The Ventures, but I find myself increasingly tuned into the local classics station.  The sound, and the selections, are just too good to ignore.  The last movement of Robert Schumann's Symphony #1, with its stirring accelerando is playing right now, and it is a fitting accompaniment for the article I am currently composing.

Time was I would write an article on a space mission about once a month.  This wouldn't be a wrap-up, but an article devoted to a single satellite.  But the pace of space launches has increased – there were two successful orbital flights in 1957, nine in 1958, 13 in 1959, 20 in 1960, 38 in 1961.  There were six flights just last week.  Either I'm going to have to start abbreviating my coverage, or I'll need to start a satellite (no pun intended) column. 

But that's a decision for next year.  Right now, with a bit of musical texturing, let me tell you all about the exciting things that happened in spaceflight, April 1962:

Quartet in USAF Minor

Late last year, President Kennedy put a lid on all military space programs, classifying their details.  This was a break from Ike's policy, which was to publicize them (more or less accurately).  I think Eisenhower's idea was that any space shot was good for prestige.  Also, if we were upfront about military flights, maybe the Soviets would follow suit.

The current President has decided that discretion is the better path.  So even though I have it on good authority that four boosters took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California (it being rather hard to hide a blast of that magnitude, and the papers are still reporting on them as best they can), I couldn't tell you exactly what was at the tips of those rockets.  It's a fair bet, however, that three of them were reconnaissance satellites, snapping photos of the USSR from orbit.  The last was probably a nuclear missile launch detector called MIDAS.  That's make it the 5th in the series. 

Quartet in USSR Minor

Meanwhile, the Russians, who had not reported any spaceflights since Comrade Titov's flight last summer, suddenly threw up four probes in about as many weeks.  The missions of "Kosmos" 1-4 were "to study weather, communications, and radiation effects during long space flights in preparation for an eventual manned landing."

That sounds good, but while the first three satellites are still up in orbit returning scientific data, the fourth, launched four days ago, landed three days later – after passing over the United States several times.  All we know about it was it was launched from "a secret base" and "valuable data [was] obtained."  Given that Kosmos 4's mission plan bore a striking resemblance to that of our Discoverer capsule-return spy sats, I suspect the first three Kosmos shots were a flimsy camouflage.  What's interesting here is that the Communists feel it necessary to construct a cover-up.  But the fact is, they just can't hide when they launch things into space, any more than we can. 

Solo for English Horn

The first UK satellite, Ariel 1, was successfully launched on April 26, 1962 atop an American Thor Delta booster.  The little probe will investigate the Earth's ionosphere.  You can read all about this mission in Ashley Pollard's recent article.

Mooncrash Sonata

It's two steps forward, one step back for NASA's ill-starred ("mooned?") Ranger program.  Thrice, the lunar probe failed to fly due to a balky Atlas Agena booster.  This time, Ranger 4, launched April 24, 1962, was hurled on a perfect course for the Earth's celestial companion.  The trajectory was so perfect that the craft didn't even require a mid-course correction.

Of course, it wouldn't have mattered if it had.  Upon leaving the Earth, it quickly became apparent that Ranger 4 was brain-dead.  It issued no telemetry, nor did it respond to commands.  NASA dispiritedly tracked the probe's 64-hour trip to the moon, which ended in its impact on the far side. 

Heart-breaking, but it is a sort of semi-victory: At least the rocket works now, and the United States as finally caught up with the Soviets in another aspect of the Space Race (just two-and-a-half years late…)

Saturn (fortissimo)

Speaking of successful rockets, the tremendous Saturn I had another successful test on April 25, 1962.  Like the first, the upper two stages were inert, filled with water for ballast.  This flight has a twist, however.  After the first stage had exhausted its fuel, the dummy stages were detonated and the ensuing watery explosion observed.  This "Operation Highwater" was designed to demonstrate how far the debris of a booster blast would travel.  I imagine it was also a lot of fun.

I have to wonder about the future of the Saturn I.  It has already been determined that the Apollo moon craft will be launched by the much more powerful and generally unrelated Saturn C-5 and Nova boosters.  It seems that the Saturn I is something of a technological dead end, though I'm sure they are at least perfecting their heavy booster launch techniques.

Prelude, Symphony #2

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is planning another Mercury one-person shot for next month.  It will be an exact duplicate of John Glenn's February flight, down to the three-orbit duration.  To be piloted by Navy aviator Scott Carpenter (the hunkiest of the Mercury 7), the main purpose of the mission is to make sure that the errors that plagued Glenn during his flight are fixed before the little spacecraft takes on longer journeys.  And, of course, then we will have caught up with the Russians in another way – we'll have had two men orbit the planet.

No doubt, Carpenter's flight will be the spaceflight highlight of next month; I have not seen any other missions announced.  Then again, the Reds might have a surprise that'll have us singing a different tune…