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Comment by Dive Diva on November 6, 2009 at 1:48pm

The winter of 1969 marked the beginning of the Tektite Project, sponsored by the US Navy, NASA and the Dept. of the Interior. The project held special interest for NASA officials, who hoped that the project would help in preselecting individuals for participation in space flights.

Several months later, millions of people watched intently as Neil Armstrong placed the first footprints on the moon. While in Great Lameshur Bay, off St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Tektite explorers and their mission received little public notice.

In 1970 Dr. Sylvia Earle was asked to lead Mission 6, the first all-woman team labeled
"Aquanauts," to live in the ocean. The team consisted of four scientists - Sylvia Earle, Renate True, Ann Hartline, Alina Szmant and engineer Peggy Ann Lucas.

The emphasis of the project was no longer on proving SAT diving techniques but on using them. For two weeks the five women spent from ten to twelve hours each day outside the habitat conducting experiments and exploring their ocean home. The Tektite II scientist-aquanauts got to see the ocean as no one had before. They became reef residences.



Commercial diving technology expanded by great leaps and bounds throughout the 1970s with SAT dives as deep as 1000 fsw in the North Sea. A few centuries before, man's time underwater was limited by how long he could hold a breath. Mere decades ago dives beyond 300 ft seemed an impossibility. Now it seemed we were limited only by our imagination.

P.S.- The 1975 edition of the NOAA diving manual described no less than 50 underwater habitats. Today nearly all have been retired, dismantled and forgotten.

Comment by mohammed ali hanbazazah on November 4, 2009 at 10:02am

damn what old pic