Suggested Searches

10 min read

NEEMO 19 Crew Shares Undersea Experiences

Photo of astronaut crew undersea with Aquarius Habitat in background
Photo of astronaut crew undersea with Aquarius Habitat in background
NASA

Randy’s Journal:

Randy Bresnik – NEEMO 19 Commander

Whether 60 feet under the surface of the ocean, a mile and a half into a cave underground, or 250 miles above the earth in low earth orbit, they are all inhospitable places that don’t support human life.  Yet we as human beings have been able to make the equipment and master the techniques to not only survive, but thrive in these extreme environments. 

This past week of living aboard Aquarius as saturated divers has been filled with awe and wonder.  The majesty of this beautiful undersea world was a beauty to behold.   The dangers are self-evident and ever present, but so were the amazing opportunities to train in such a unique and hostile environment.  Overcoming these challenges made the results of our work seem all that more rewarding.   Evaluating equipment, developing procedures, and researching operations in an environment with a delay in communications was our mission.  Thanks to the hard work and dedication of the entire team of NEEMO 19, we were wildly successful. 

Our International crew of Aquanauts were but a tiny part of the greater NEEMO team.  An American, a Dane, a Frenchman and a Canadian comprised the crew for NEEMO 19 and were successful only due to the army of dedicated personnel from NASA, FIU Aquarius Reef Base, and Industry as well as Academic partners.  The team created the exploration sites, techniques and practices utilized during the mission.  They manned Mission Control coordinating the Earth-based side of the mission driving the timeline and mission objectives through a new and unique planning and communication tool.  The critical element evaluated during the mission was the element of time.  A 10 minute round-trip communications delay  was implemented to determine how operations between Spacewalking crew and MCC could function.  This has a direct application to possible future human exploration of other planets or asteroids. 

The NEEMO 19 team just completed our final EVA or simulated ‘Spacewalk’ on the ocean floor this afternoon.  It is with great sadness that we have to leave the extreme environment of undersea living we have learned to call home this past week.  We can only hope that we have helped further humankind’s knowledge of how to operate and explore in hostile environments so that future human explorers will be able to be highly efficient and successful. 

Andy’s Video Blog:

Andy Mogensen

Andy chose to dazzle us with video blogs from each day of the mission, including all of the training that took place leading up to splash down. Andy was honing these skills already on NEEMO 17/SEATEST 2 last year.  Follow the story on this video playlist of his journey as an astronaut headed to the International Space Station. NEEMO is grateful to Andy for all of the time he spent creating these amazing videos, and for bringing this mission to life for so many people that will never get the chance to see it first hand!

Jeremy’s Journal:

Jeremy Hansen

I have been living 50 feet below the sea surface for 3 days now and the most accurate description I can provide is WOW!  Our schedule keeps us busy but there are still times when you step back and realize where you are and what you’re doing.  Last night as I feel asleep was one of those moments for me.  In that quiet moment I realized I was lying in a relatively small metal can on the ocean floor with 5 other humans while a symphony of marine activity was underway around us.  During those quiet times in the habitat you hear so many weird and wonderful noises from the reef that both surrounds and covers the Aquarius habitat. Even the coral itself makes noise on the hull of the habitat. 

Yesterday I had a 1 hr break in my schedule, so I went outside underneath the wet porch and gazebo area with my mask and snorkel and sat still to observe the life around the habitat.  The highlights were a school of Permit fish busy patrolling under the habitat, a Large spotted ray that glided past me and the realization of the sheer quantity of life on Aquarius.  Mind blowing.  One last marine life story… last night we watched the feeding frenzy that occurs primarily in the evening hours in the glow of the Aquarius lights.  It is sheer chaos and all you can do is watch with your jaw wide open as fish dart in all directions either eating or avoiding being eaten. 

I’m enjoying the company of 5 other humans who all contribute to the experience.  Ryan and Otter, our hab techs are an incredible source of marine knowledge.  They have so much time logged in Aquarius that you would think they have seen everything.  The fact that they still watch with amazement as well is a good indication that I will only get a taste of this experience during my short stay.  My crewmates Komrade, Andy and Herve are all performing their tasks at a high level and working well as a team.  This is making our stay very pleasant and we laugh regularly.  So far we have managed to accomplish our objectives and our mission is proceeding according to the plan.   Today, Komrade and I did a 4 hr exploration Space Walk.  It was amazing and challenging.  There was an extremely strong current.  Not that I have ever done this, but I would estimate it would be like trying to walk in 200km winds.  It was all you could do to walk up current while dragging your umbilical.  It was great to be on the reef for over 4 hrs and see so much coral.  We were very busy and hardly had time to take in all the things I was seeing but it still left a lasting impression.

Herve’s Journal:

Herve Stevenin

50 hours underwater and counting since I splashed down to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Since two days I am an Aquanaut…

I write from inside the Aquarius Reef Base Habitat, 15 km off shore of Key Largo, Florida where I live with 5 other crew members: our Commander NASA astronaut “Komrade” Rendy Bresnik, who already flew in space and performed spacewalks, CSA astronaut “Weed” Jeremy Bresnik, my ESA astronaut colleague “Andy” Andreas Mogensen and two Habitat Technician Marc and Ryan.

Our mission – NEEMO XIX, the 19th NASA Extreme Environment Operations led by Bill Todd, the “Father of NEEMO” and 1st NEEMO Crew Commander ever during NEEMO 1, which took place 13 years ago. It is not completely new for me, as I supported in 2012 the NEEMO16 mission as Capcom and Support diver around the Aquarius habitat. I know all the MCC and diver guys supporting our NEEMO XIX mission from having been part of this amazingly efficient team in 2012. Barbara Janoiko, our Lead Mission Director and Marc Reagan, Mission Director and Aquanaut for NEEMO 2 are the orchestra masters of the support to us from Mission Control. The voices of MCC are the Capcoms Jack Hayhurst and my colleague from the European Astronaut Centre, Jennifer Struble.  I experienced the professionalism, deep commitment and high dedication of this support team in 2012. It was already awesome to be part of them. This time it is even more amazing: I interact with them from the other side of the “water curtain”. For the 1st time of my life I am a crew member and realize what a fantastic support they provide to NEEMO crews. Last but not least, my crewmates are wonderful and extremely skilled and competent guys: it is an honour and a real privilege to be on board with them.

Our goal – we simulate a mission to Mars and its moons. Not the way to fly to it, but our simulation started around Mars. Here we are, with 5 minutes delay in all our communications with Mission Control. If we have a question, we can only get the answer at the earliest 10 minutes later. It requires to be clear and concise in our communications and we test different operational modes and tools to assess the best set-up for such a mission to Mars. Aquarius is our “spaceship”. We all feel, that we are part of it. We really belong to it for this mission and it sounds like it is alive. We hear noises, we feel it slightly move back and forth with the current, we feel in our eardrums the regular changes of pressure inside the module due to the waves at the surface. I start thinking that this regular slight pressure change that we feel in our body is like the heart beats of Aquarius. This module is ours and we are his Crew for one week. The marine life outside changes every time according to a seemed to be predefined choreography. We watch an alien like world full of life from huge barracudas monitoring us to tiny little planktons dancing in front of our window at night. But this environment is there living universe and we are the aliens visiting their world and “coming in peace”. I was also surprise to discover an underwater weather. Light, current, visibility, colors changes slowly like on surface. Marc told me and he was so right.

I have already performed two spacewalks outside. We simulated that we were floating above the surface of a moon of Mars and tested core drilling operations with a drill machine at the extremity of an articulated arm. We tested a new operational concept, new tools and procedures to extract core samples from the surface. We already extracted 40 cm of core sample. We never went so deep in drilling in all the past NEEMO missions.

Today, we started our Mars like explorations. Andreas and Komrade went outside heading to exploration sites pre-mapped by a rover to precisely locate and measure geological features on the surface. They flew to their waypoints with a Diver Delivery System, our amazing “flying carpet” coming out of a James Bond Sci-Fi type of movie. Weed was guiding them from inside with me beside him piloting a Remotely Operated Vehicle following our explorers outside. Another first time for me: virtually flying behind them was outstanding.  This ROV is our exploration companion: Andreas reported to us that its light bulbs were like 2 eyes and he got the feeling to be followed by WALL-E. We tested today how the spacewalkers and inside crew could explore autonomously, while getting re-planning directions from the remote Control Centre with such time delay in the communications. We pave the road to Mars. One small step ahead for the preparation of the Mars exploration adventure. Such a giant leap for me…