Dr. Love's Underwater Blog 2011 #1
October 25
Key Largo, FL

Image at right: The NEEMO 15 Crew performs a simulated behavioral health assessment scenario.

This is Mission Day 5. Time flies fast. We have performed six “spacewalks” so far, and today we had no scheduled Extravehicular Activity (EVA), but that didn’t mean we had free time…

The first event began when one of our habitat technicians rushed into the cabin with a red swollen arm. He told us that he had been stung by a jellyfish. After a while, he fainted. It took me some time to realize that this was a simulation scenario which was a part of the behavioral health and performance study. Fortunately we have a crewmember, David Saint-Jacques, who has medical background, so he took the lead to give the patient some treatment with medical kits. The NEEMO15 commander, Shannon Walker, kept contact with the Mission Control Center by phone, getting some advice from a dive medical officer on the ground. Steven Squyres recorded each step we performed. And I assisted David, following his instruction. We worked fine as a team.

We went through the second scenario in the afternoon. This time, the smoke alarm suddenly rang out in the habitat. We were told that the smoke came from the microwave, so we pulled out its power cable. According to the emergency procedure we tried to use oxygen masks in the cabin, but somehow they didn’t work. We were forced to evacuate the cabin and fled to the wet porch. Oxygen masks worked there. It seemed that there was a problem somewhere between the wet porch and the cabin. We looked at a schematic of the air supply/vent system of the habitat. We successfully found the cause, and in the end, the case was closed.

Since we might have to deal with some troubles by ourselves during long-distance exploration, coordinating with the ground staff along the way a great exercise. And we demonstrated good teamwork in both cases.

Today was Day 4 of our mission and it was a challenging one. As usual, the action was centered around the “EVAs”, or extra-vehicular activities in NASA parlance – our simulated space walks.

We had two different kinds of activities in today’s EVAs. One of them was very slow, very methodical, and very effective. Imagine a long telescoping pole – we called it a boom – with big heavy magnets on each end. We used this boom to get around on the simulated asteroid surface (i.e., the sea floor), moving like an inchworm.

It goes like this: Fasten both magnets to anchor points on the surface. Unfasten one and move to it to a new anchor point. Fasten it. Unfasten the other one and move it to a new anchor point… and repeat as necessary. It was slow, but it got us to where we wanted to go pretty reliably.

Once we arrived at our destination, the boom was great. It’s hard to do things like hit a rock with a hammer in zero-g without going flying. But with the boom solidly in place, we could wrap our legs around it and whack away at the rock pretty easily. So a boom could be a good technique for geologists to use to get work done on an asteroid, I think.

The other part of the EVA was totally different… jet packs! We had battery-powered thruster packs on our backs that we could use to move very quickly and easily from one place to another. And yeah, I have to confess, it was every bit as much fun as it sounds like it was. Quick, easy, and very cool. Problem was, once we arrived at our destination with a job to do, staying in place was a lot harder.

Sometimes the best answer to a complicated problem is to use some combination of techniques. So one way I could see this going might be that astronauts would use jet packs to move long distances over an asteroid surface, and then a boom for smaller motions and getting work done.

Or maybe they’ll use something completely different! It’s only Day 4 of the mission, and we’ve got a lot more techniques to try… so we’ll see.

Image on the right: Aquanauts David Saint-Jacques and Takuya Onishi working together during a simulated Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA)

Already day 3 in our new home! I’m impressed how quickly the team adapted to this alien environment, with the beautiful coral reef and marine life outside the window, the omnipresent and complex life support systems of Aquarius, the odd feeling of distance from people living on the surface… all of these make it feel like we’re in another world!

 I think that shared experience has made us quickly comfortable living here with each other. We really function like a team, meaning we don’t think about our life and work together as “teamwork”, but rather as spontaneous, easygoing and friendly interaction. When people are genuinely happy to work together, teamwork just happens, it’s the natural way people like to help others and work towards a common goal.

 Everything here is teamwork. During our mock spacewalks it’s most obvious: the outside crew, inside crew, habitat technicians, safety divers, mission controllers and CapComs, scientists, engineers, public affairs personnel, all fluidly working together. But teamwork is also omnipresent in daily life in Aquarius, in the meal preparation, in the care for common areas, in the way we generally look out for each other.

Our families are also part of the team! Today instead of the usual dehydrated hiking food, we ate a meal prepared by my wife and sent down to Aquarius with the daily supplies delivery. A nice morale boost!

Teamwork is essential if we want to achieve something bigger than ourselves – and it’s fun, too!

Image on the left: Aquanaut Takuya Onishi performing translation task on a simulated asteroid

Today was our second mission day in the water. Yesterday was a busy day.

I woke up around 5:30 am and enjoyed a wonderful view from the window in our sleeping area for a while. A lot of fish were swimming across the window reflecting an external light of Aquarius. Then another busy day began.

We performed two “spacewalks” in two teams today. David and Steve went out first and I supported them from Aquarius. I gave them instructions step by step, and they did a great job performing some tasks like sample collections and deployment of sensors. Each spacewalk has its own objectives, and today’s main objective was to test one of the translation methods which were supposed to be effective on an asteroid surface. We deployed some lines in our working area near Aquarius and used them for translation.

After a short lunch break, Shannon and I went out. That was my fourth dive in the SuperLite-17 helmet. I felt I was getting used to it. I could breathe more comfortably than the last time. The translation line seems like a great method. We could easily translate between our sampling locations by pulling ourselves up a line and also create enough ground reaction force to perform tasks.

Being in the water for about three hours made me feel cold at the end of the “spacewalk”. One good thing is we have hot shower in Aquarius. I enjoyed it. 

Though I was too busy to enjoy the window view in the daytime, we have two more hours until we go to bed. I’ll sit at the table and spend some time watching colorful fish from the window.

Image shows NEEMO 15  crew members from right to left (Commander: Shannon Walker (NASA), Steve Squyres (Cornell), David Saint-Jacques (CSA), Takuya Onishi (JAXA))

Today was splashdown day.  As stormy as the weather had been for the last five days, today was sunny and beautiful.  And, thankfully, the seas were calm.

Because we had to delay our start of the mission, there were more habitat checkouts than usual to be completed before we could get to work.  Last weekend before the storms hit, the umbilical to Aquarius was removed to ensure that it was not damaged.  The umbilical provides the air and communications to the habitat and runs from the habitat up to a giant buoy on the surface.  First thing this morning support divers went out to reconnect the umbilical and our hab techs, James and Nate, went inside Aquarius to start getting it configured.  Early afternoon, the rest of the crew scuba’d down and entered their new home.  After an orientation and safety briefing, the crew was put to work stowing gear and setting up the communication system.

Once everything was ready to go, the sun was setting and it was getting dark outside the habitat.  But, our day was not done.  The crew had to do some familiarization dives to get acquainted with diving on a helmet connected to the habitat.  David and Steve went out first.  They spent about forty-five minutes walking around the area where we will be working our first excursion in the morning.  After that Tak and I went out. 

It was nearly 9:00 p.m. by the time we were finished.  So, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then wrapped things up for the night.

All and all, a very interesting day.  It is quite strange to think that we are in a can that is at the bottom of the sea.  And, even stranger to look out your windows and see fish!

Crew poses for a group photo right after splash down. Crew members from the left to right (Commander: Shannon Walker, Takuya Onishi,Steve Squyres, David Saint-Jacques). Inside Habitat (Hab Techs: Nate Bender, James Talek)