Comments on: A journey to Aquarius—the last underwater research lab

By: Nadreck

Nadreck — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 03:30:00 +0000

I blame the UFO cults. It’s impossible to Google “Undersea Base” or “Undersea Lab” without your first million hits being about the Alien “Greys’” undersea bases. I had a friend who tried to do actual, serious research on undersea bases and pretty much had to do it off-line.

By: gypsyspacemuffin

gypsyspacemuffin — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 17:54:00 +0000

This is one of the most incredible things I have ever heard…how has such a beautiful research facility been kept out of public attention like this? Deep sea labs? Aquastronauts?! For me, this is like learning that something conjured up from the adventure tales of my childhood has, in fact, been true for decades.

Just in time to realize it’s facing extinction…

By: cliffr

cliffr — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:18:00 +0000

Wow, kind of cool. How many Aquanauts are Boing Boing readers? I was a habitat technician for this first mission of this cycle with Sylvia Earle back in 1999.

Worth mentioning the Aquarius is trying to keep going with donations. If you think we need to continue research in the ocean, support them.

http://www.aquariusreefbase.org/

By: BlooSee

BlooSee — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:29:00 +0000

We need more research centers like this, not less or none at all. Research like this is critical to solving our ocean pollutions and overfishing problems. Just look at the reef they are located off of: http://bloosee.com/r/iFDShc

By: Katie Lacy

Katie Lacy — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 20:13:00 +0000

Did they find a tweaked out Jonny Quest in there? http://youtu.be/t25OiSe_Od8

By: Warren_Terra

Warren_Terra — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 19:21:00 +0000

I love the line about the WiFi network.

By: Henry Pootel

Henry Pootel — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 18:49:00 +0000

Not Penny’s boat!

By: Derek Prowse

Derek Prowse — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 18:44:00 +0000

They have a couple of larger pots reclaimed from industrial pressurized painting equipment. Getting them down there is easy.. finding out which of them have hard drives that will seize up at ‘depth’ is, er, less so.

Running pots up and down was a fun task – in that you got to exact your ‘transport fee’ on whatever food they had requested.

By: johnphantom

johnphantom — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 18:23:00 +0000

Awesome. I wonder how they get things like laptops down there…

By: Maggie Koerth-Baker

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 18:20:00 +0000

D’oh. Thanks. Fixed.

By: sharon_marsh

sharon_marsh — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 18:03:00 +0000

Key Largo, not Key West.

By: aeroplane

aeroplane — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:57:00 +0000

I like to imagine that living there would be something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWSqUON_hvI

By: Joseph Francis

Joseph Francis — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:40:00 +0000

Hello Down There!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iquA-Qulkk

By: Derek Prowse

Derek Prowse — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:30:00 +0000

The last of it’s breed, and the current mission is supposedly the last. I worked there for a year, and consider it the most exciting, demanding, and inspiring time of my life. The crew at the helm these days is a hell of a bunch, and it’s damned disappointing that the program is threatened. It’s a space station for the sea!

There are a number of Astronauts and A-Candidates that cycled through the habitat as part of NASA’s Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) – We called them Aquastronauts..

Ask /them/ which locale, sea vs space, is a crueler mistress.