WORLD OF THE SEA

[Applause] [Music] a whole new world is opening up a world beneath the sea and in that world man will play a dominant role as he does on land [Music] [Laughter] for the oceans are now being developed and are becoming more essential to our defense needs our economic well-being as a storehouse of material resources and a source of scientific knowledge that can lead to the control and improvement of our environment [Music] the oceans have a special meaning for the United States Navy with its expanding operations in the deep oceans it must be able to perform essential support missions at greater depths than ever before [Music] missions that require new techniques and particularly call for the divers skills and reliance on his ability to work down deep for long periods of time on tasks like Salvage and repair underwater construction studies of acoustics [Music] [Applause] [Music] and scientific research [Music] until recent years a dive into the ocean 100 feet or 200 feet was a daring and oftentimes dangerous exploit man's ability to dive had always been severely limited by the effects of tons of ocean pressure on his body forcing him to rise to the surface after only a short time on the bottom the divers most basic need was his air supply since breathing air was vital to his life-support it was well known that the air the diver breathed had to be pressurized to equal the ocean pressure otherwise when descending his lungs would be squeezed to dangerous levels and upon ascending expanded to an explosive level but there was another problem when gases are pressurized they go into solution and enter the divers bloodstream as the diver rises to the surface and the pressure lessens it is the dissolved nitrogen in his air supply that becomes the villain as it changes back into a gas unless the diver is slowly and gradually decompressed the bubbles of nitrogen gas and create embolisms in his bloodstream the Navy developed new helium oxygen mixtures for the divers to breathe to eliminate the narcotic effect of nitrogen on a diver under pressure but lengthy decompression times in relation to the limited time the diver could safely spend working in the ocean still was frustrating to the goal of keeping him safely and productively in the sea for long periods of time scientists and engineers all over the world are conducting their own independent investigations to solve this problem one of the most important discoveries came in 1957 when a Navy diving research group directed by Captain George F bond was investigating some novel and unusual diving theories today we're standing in front of the ocean simulation facility which is a research device of the u.s. Navy capable of simulating ocean depths of greater than two thousand feet now man has been diving for well over 200 years and yet until quite recently he was limited in his capability working underwater at any significant depth in fact until quite recently he could not do significant work at depth of greater than 200 feet in 1958 in an effort to overcome the problems of long decompression times we developed in the Navy a system known as saturation diving this concept provides that you give a man a habitat or a house to live on on the ocean bottom whether it be mobile or fixed and after people have lived under these high-pressure conditions breathing a special gas mixture for a period of some hours they become totally saturated with the gas now they can work for days or weeks or months on the ocean floor and only take decompression at the end of a long period of work here at Panama City we have a research facility in which we can simulate any condition known to an underwater do it with complete safety yet accurate data and then translate this work into the open sea experience in the spring of 1968 at the Navy's experimental diving unit in Washington DC traditionally the center of diving research medical research is watched as a world record was made [Music] Navy divers descended in a wet dive in this hyperbaric test chamber to a simulated depth of 1025 feet two years later in 1970 during a special test for the Navy in New Orleans divers made a wet dive to a simulated depth of 1,100 feet in 1972 at the University of Pennsylvania in tests sponsored by the Navy and other agencies divers reached a depth of 1,200 feet breathing new neon helium oxygen gas mixtures instead of the standard helium oxygen gas customarily used for deep diving and in many other countries of the world dives to record depths were being achieved while medical researchers have been concerned with gaining full understanding of the physical medical and chemical reactions of the human body in the ocean environment and achieving great success others have been deeply involved in the engineering aspects of deep diving with equally successful results the Navy recently announced the operational readiness of the mark 10 breathing device during hundreds of hours of testing the divers were swimming laboratories with electrodes wired to their bodies measuring temperatures of skin body and breathing gas as well as recording their heart rate and breathing gas composition the mark 10 has been called the first major breakthrough in diving technology since the scuba device was invented 30 years ago and promises to revolutionize man's ability to live and work in the sea [Music] the tests were conducted under rigorous simulated deep ocean saltwater conditions at 29 degrees Fahrenheit the temperature of the polar seas divers were warmed by circulating hot water suits as they dive to depths of 1,100 feet breathing mixtures of approximately 99% helium and 1% oxygen they exercised by swimming and working medical teams kept the divers under constant surveillance observing their physiological reactions and psychological indications of tension fear and exhaustion one thing appears unusual when first seeing the mark 10 in operation underwater unlike other diving devices no gas bubbles are visible for it operates on a closed circuit principle the divers exhaled gas is returned to him for reuse after it has passed through an efficient scrubber which removes the carbon dioxide an automatic sensing and control system replaces oxygen consumed metabolically by the diver the output of the oxygen partial pressure sensor is monitored in an electronics package which is pre-programmed to keep the oxygen content within desired limits at all deaths the diver in effect as a miniature computer supplying his breathing gas another remarkable breathing device the mark 11 was also developed by the Navy it is a back mounted semi closed-circuit system most of the breathing gas is retained in the system and recirculated after carbon dioxide is removed additional gas is constantly added to maintain proper oxygen levels improved breathing characteristics have been achieved by better placement of breathing bags and exhaust valve and by a new type of exhaust valve now Navy divers can dive deeper than they have ever gone before and with greater safety but having achieved the ability to dive to greater depths and stay submerged for long periods of time the diver must have a place of refuge where he can rest between dives and live comfortably and eventually be decompressed when his mission is over while the mark 10 and Mark 11 breathing devices were progressing to their successful completion the Navy was also developing deep diving systems the deep-diving system concept had great significance for the Navy Operational needs might arise or storms at sea might threaten which would require leaving the diving scene in the hurry [Music] as a result of years of planning and experimentation to deep-diving systems the mark 1 in the mark 2 have now been accepted by the Navy the mark 1 is a transportable system which can be used for non saturation or saturation dives from a number of platforms as in all systems that must support life pre-operational checkout of the mark 1 deep diving system is critical the main control console is the heart of the system from here all functioning parts of the system are monitored and controlled the master diver at the main control console checks off incoming reports from personnel at all stations personnel medically ok and ready today all instruments calibrated both to and treatment gases online gas mixtures ready for use communications loud and clear TV camera and recorders operating understood [Music] down three [Music] a check is made inside the capsule to confirm proper gas pressure emergency power and communications they've go to the bottom ok snipe lure them down is 60 feet a minute [Music] on the bottom on the bottom pressured bound when ready the pressure inside the personnel transfer capsule is increased until it equals the bottom depth pressure equalizing the inside and outside pressures causes the seal around the tightly closed lower hatch to be broken now the diver can open the hatch with normal effort [Music] outside this is the driver good evening I read you loud and clear Halmi did you say [Music] attached to the personnel transfer capsule by the life-supporting umbilical he is now free to work in the ocean [Music] his mission completed the diver returns to the capsule for the ascent [Music] the personnel transfer capsule is mated to the deck decompression chamber now the divers can transfer from one to the other [Music] in the deck decompression chambers the divers are maintained in a controlled pressurized condition during rest periods between dives or while undergoing decompression after a mission food is passed to them through a medical lock a closed-circuit television in the main control console monitors their activities in the deck decompression chamber they relax under regular living conditions when finally decompressed the diver once again emerges into the surface world a living witness to a remarkable engineering achievement equally remarkable is the mark two deep diving system alike in principle to the mark 1 but with some important differences the mark 2 is purely a saturation system and is permanently installed in a new catamaran hull submarine rescue vessel with both the mark 1 and mark 2 systems continuous work can now be accomplished on the ocean floor by men who are always under pressure and can safely live and work for extended periods of time deep in the ocean one of the men who has been involved in the Navy's diving advances from the very beginning is captain Eugene Mitchell director of Salvage diving and ocean engineering over the past 10 years diving technology has increased tremendously and we at last have developed for the Navy a capability to work in the oceans at depths never dreamed off before this capability and this technology are made available to all others who work in the sea the development of the mark 1 deep dive system shown here the mark to deep dive system the mark 10 the mark 11 underwater breathing apparatus represents significant breakthroughs the Navy has a continuing requirement to dive deeper in support of its salvage efforts and to accomplish many other tasks which were previously considered impossible we've been working with technicians scientists engineers and industry and we've developed new techniques for the Navy which permit us to dive today deeper than ever Navy diving has come a long way in 1939 divers salvaging the submarines whale it's made over 600 dives but could only work for 10 minutes during each die they spent months to make these 600 dives today with the world's most sophisticated diving system which we now have the entire mission could have been completed in days never before as diving technology expanded at such a nominal rate we are now down below 8,000 feet and our helium oxygen dives soon we plan to go to 1600 feet beyond that we will seek the limit of human endurance there are still some problems that need to be overcome and communications is one of them breathing helium oxygen gas mixtures the divers voice changes to a garbled speech difficult to understand and sometimes amusing on scramblers which can clarify the divert speech are still under development the goal is to make speech which sounds like this [Music] pass through the unscrambler and come through loud and clear cometh well what is the water tentative there are other problems too in maintaining the diver if he is to remain for extended periods in deep and cold ocean waters when the diver breathes helium oxygen the helium causes his body heat to escape more rapidly making its replacement imperative the Navy is using diving suits through which hot water is circulated typical of the need to keep dive as warm while working under sea is this mission during which Navy divers surveyed the Arctic waters beneath the floating ice island t3 280 miles from the North Pole [Music] water temperature was twenty eight point nine degrees Fahrenheit with the new diving technology which makes possible dives of over 1,000 feet for long periods of time it is an essential requirement to keep the dive of warm in the coldest undersea environment but before man can work in the sea he must have tools and if they do not exist he invents them the naval civil engineering laboratory has developed tools that permit man to work as efficiently on the sea bottom as he does on land a multitude of tasks await the diver working in the sea tests like salvaging sunken ships and materials or implanting a structure on the sea bottom or installing undersea instruments and keeping them in working order one important underwater task of today is eliminating sources of pollution as in this offshore project in Guam here Navy divers study undersea currents in relation to the flow of treated effluent from sewage outfalls to prevent it from contaminating the beaches [Music] if the locations of the outfalls can be changed the effluence will be carried far out to the deep sea by the currents to become agents of enrichment rather than contamination [Music] from the research into the effects of pressure on the human body by medical doctors as well as Navy scientists have come some unusual results including many documented cases of the saving of a hospital patient's life normal medical treatment can be ineffective in arresting severe infections in the abdominal cavity where the oxygen free atmosphere keeps the bacteria thriving as a last resort the patients have been placed in a hyperbaric pressure chamber reasoning that under pressure the body would be forced to absorb a large amount of extra oxygen enough to stop the infection [Music] the treatment was successful and the patient's fully recovered from a unique partnership of scientists engineer and medical specialists have come incredible new diving developments a revolutionary theory of saturation diving join together with deep diving systems that are marvels of modern engineering and ingenious diving breathing devices have at last made many of yesterday's dreams the diving realities of today for ages man has envied the mammals of the sea as they dived effortlessly to great depths the mammals must rise frequently to the surface for a breath of life giving air now it may be their turn to envy man with his newfound ability to dive deep into the ocean and remain for long periods of time the day has finally arrived when man can confidently face his age old adversary the ocean turning its dynamic forces and material resources to his own benefit [Music] diving ever deeper he has at last found his world of tomorrow the world of the sea [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]