To learn more about Aquarius, visit www.OneWorldOneOcean.org
Life support buoy at surface provides power, 100 mbps connectivity air, communications, What Is Aquarius? and support equipment. for broadcast quality streaming video, and The only undersea research lab allowing scien- call capability to Built in Victoria, TX, in 1986. tists to live underwater for up to 2-week international space Since 1993, the lab has station in orbit. supported 114 missions. missions. 50 FT.
43 FT. 86-ton steel chamber,
© Stephen Frink © Stephen pressure rated to Kitchen, lab and bunks 120 feet for 6, in 400 sq. ft. space. deep. 95 FT.
Additional air tanks on Moon pool allows sea oor within 1000 ft. aquanauts to enter/leave without A diver approaches the Aquarius reef base. Located four miles from airlocks or hatches. Key Largo, in a “research Owner: National Oceanic and Operator: University of only” zone on Conch Reef, Mission aquanauts Atmospheric Administration North Carolina Wilmington Florida Keys National living in Aquarius can (NOAA) (UNCW) Marine Sanctuary. stay for 2 weeks and FLORIDA have 6 to 9 hours of diving down to about
KEY LARGO SHORE BASE 95 feet each day
Partners: NASA, US Navy Participants: 1266 astronauts, scientists, and grad students from 205 AQUARIUS Houses the world’s most in depth institutions. coral reef monitoring program.
A Five Fold Mission Living Underwater
■ Scienti c research: Aquarius has produced hundreds of ■ Saturation diving: Aquarius maintains the underwater peer-reviewed scientic papers on corel reef ecosystems, sea pressure of 2.5 atmospheres, so divers don’t have to sponges and other topics. Sea sponge ltration signicantly decompress until the mission is over. This allows individual impacts water quality, and sea sponges are the source of scuba dives of 9 hrs, instead of the typical 1-2 hour surface- cancer drugs Ara-C and Halaven. based dives. Scientists can accomplish in 9 days what might ■ Coral reef & ocean observation: 20 years of in-depth take 6-12 months otherwise. “It’s a time machine,” said research from Aquarius has provided much of what we Aquarius veteran, Dr. Mark Patterson. know of shallow reef ecosystems. ■ Decompression: Before returning to the surface after a ■ Training: NASA astronauts train here, to simulate the mission, aquanauts decompress inside Aquarius for 16 extreme, isolated space environment. hours, during which they can continue working, then ■ Ocean education and outreach: Live broadcasts from a ascend to the surface directly. single 16-day mission reached 450,000 students, and two JASON expeditions reached 1 million students. Funding ■ R&D of undersea technology: Aquarius has been used for ■ The annual budget has been cut from a previous high of development of ocean exploration technologies like $18million through the National Undersea Research Remotely Operated Vehicles, pioneering underwater Program, to $2.5 million for the last several years, to zero in measurement of UV light, and the rst underwater use of a 2013. The nal mission is slated for July 2012. mass spectrometer on a coral reef.