Astronauts to Aquanauts; NASA Conducts Experiments on Sea Floor

22 May 2010

It is easy to conjure up images of astronauts working in space, but there are also astronauts living and working on the sea floor, where they conduct experiments to prepare for future space missions.

Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield has spent most of the past two weeks about 19 meters below the waves off the Florida coast. He is leading a two-week NASA mission aboard the Aquarius Underwater Laboratory, which is run by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Hadfield's team includes a NASA astronaut, an undersea engineer and a scientist. They live inside Aquarius, and they run experiments in the lab and explore the blue depths outside the porthole windows.

"I found that when I was working outside here over the last couple of weeks, I would suddenly notice where I am while I'm working. I'm busy working on some part of a space suit design, and then an angel fish goes by or a ray scuttles across the bottom of the ocean, and it reminds me of both the comfort-level I've gotten to and the amazing difference of where I am," he said.

Hadfield is on the sea floor inside the Aquarius underwater habitat's 122 square meters of living and working space. It is anchored next to a coral reef, five and half kilometers off Key Largo in the Florida Keys.

But even on the ocean floor, Aquarius is visible on the World Wide Web. Commander Hadfield can be seen via webcam on NASA's web site. He stands in a narrow white room with stainless steel equipment as he speaks to reporters using something that looks akin to a cordless phone.