Sealab II

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headhunter

Renaissance Diver
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Have any of you dove to the site of Sealab II in La Jolla?

From what I was reading, the Navy apparently abandoned all sea floor habitats after one of their divers died of carbon dioxide asphyxiation on a mission to repair a helium leak on Sealab III (620 feet deep).

I found this about Sealab II from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography Archives:

SIO Archives:
August 26-October 10, 1965: SeaLab II, a manned underwater saturation habitat, is operated for 45 days without problem northwest of the SIO Pier on a ledge in Scripps Canyon at a depth of 205-feet. Astronaut turned Aquanaut Scott Carpenter chats from the habitat with orbiting astronaut Gordon Cooper in Gemini V. Later, Aquanaut/SIO graduate student Richard Grigg spoke from the habitat with the French Conshelf III undersea habitat off Monaco at 328-feet.

Other info that I found talks about the "SEALAB II structure 205 feet deep one mile off La Jolla".

According to another account from The High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network:

HPWREN:
February 13, 2002
Wireless Tests Aboard US Navy Ship Include Exploration of USN/SIO SeaLab II
Earlier this month, the U.S. Navy Deep Submergence Unit (USN-DSU) brought their ship, the Kellie Chouest, as well as the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Scorpio, to the waters off Scripps pier. Their mission: to locate and dive the site of SeaLab II, a USN/SIO undersea habitat that operated in August-October 1965. This would be the first return to the site since the habitat was pulled up. This cruise was a regularly scheduled training exercise for the USN-DSU personnel; however, several guests (including UCSD faculty and staff) were able to join the crew for a day-long excursion.

This sounds like a really cool historical place to dive to. With the proper training, of course.

Christian
 
PhotoTJ:
It does sound neat. I'd like to get some pix of the site now.


Thanks alot TJ. It doesn't take much to get me off and running across the 'net to explore stuff, and you gave me a good reason to bolt to the nearest search engine. I didn't find any current photos or maps of Sealab, but I did find some really cool info.

Try these on for size:

http://www.sandiego-online.com/issues/march99/aqua1.shtml

http://www.onr.navy.mil/Focus/blowballast/people/habitats2.htm

http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/nurp/nur08011.htm

http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/nurp/nur08016.htm

http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/nurp/lab1.html

http://keyportmuseum.cnrnw.navy.mil/html/sealabi.html

http://keyportmuseum.cnrnw.navy.mil/html/sealab_ii.htm

http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent?ESRC=navy-a.nl&file=FL_sealab_032802


Of course, there is the off-beat Cartoon Network version, Sealab 2021:

http://www.adultswim.com/shows/sealab/index.html



Well, you get the drift...
 
I dive occasionally with a tech diver who has been on this site on many occasions.
This person is a hardcore tech diver and mixes their own gas!!! YES THEY HAVE ALL THE REQUIRED CERTS TO DO IT!!! All I can tell ya is it's deep and the deco is long....even on trimix.

Keep me posted when you go. Headhunter, I can put you in contact with them if you want.

Terry
 
divinman:
I dive occasionally with a tech diver who has been on this site on many occasions.
This person is a hardcore tech diver and mixes their own gas!!!
Terry

DO THEY HAVE THE REQUIRED CERTS?? And more importantly, did they pay FULL RETAIL PRICE to get them???
 
divinman:
I dive occasionally with a tech diver who has been on this site on many occasions.
This person is a hardcore tech diver and mixes their own gas!!! YES THEY HAVE ALL THE REQUIRED CERTS TO DO IT!!! All I can tell ya is it's deep and the deco is long....even on trimix.

Keep me posted when you go. Headhunter, I can put you in contact with them if you want.

Terry
Thanks Terry. It will be a while before I'm properly trained for this, but I do plan on going down that road. Not only do I need the proper training, but I also need to get the proper equipment. The site sits at 205 feet. As warm as I think I stay in my wetsuit at 100 feet at around 50 degrees, this will require me to step into dry suit territory. :11:

Christian
 
Was reading the posts and noticed the one about diving on the old Sea Lab site and why the project was terminated. My dad was the USN Diving Officer on the project. After he passed away we found his journals and the death of the diver apparently had been classified. The diver was murdered. It was not an accident. It acctually happened on Sea Lab III off San Clemente Island. No mention of why the project terminated. The last journal entry mentioned it being moved to a better location as there is a deep water trench where they were working. I was suprised by the journal entry because as a teenager I was actively involved with the project (as much as I could be as a dependent) and I was told it was an accident. J. Warren Killion
 
Mr. Killion,

Those notes are historically significant and should be presereved and if possible copies made avaliable to future serious dive historians. ( coukd you father have been Jack Tragasser aka "Black Jack."

Sea Lab was terminated after the death of Barry Cannon --which was viewed on TV 6:pM news by the American public-- and the rest of the world.

His death was offically listed as an accident...The barolime scrubbers had not been changed between dives.

"Man in the Sea" program AKA "Wet NASA" which "Sea Lab" was a componet was placed on hold and never recovered and soon became "Man on the dock program."

There is a lot more to it than this thumb nail response - but this gives the general idea..

SDM
 
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/socal/96107-sealab-ii.html

Mr. Killion,

Those notes are historically significant and should be presereved and if possible copies made avaliable to future serious dive historians. ( coukd you father have been Jack Tragasser aka "Black Jack."

Sea Lab was terminated after the death of Barry Cannon --which was viewed on TV 6:pM news by the American public-- and the rest of the world.

His death was offically listed as an accident...The barolime scrubbers had not been changed between dives....

There is a lot of controversy over the cause of death. I was on the Mark II Deep Dive System about two years after Barry Cannon's death. Several people from the Sea Lab III team were still at Submarine Development Group I and none of the men I spoke with accepted the empty canister theory. They were using Mark IX semi-closed mixed gas rebreathers. I never had to use one of those pigs, but everyone who had said an empty canister could not go unnoticed. Several reasons were given that I must agree with.

First, the rig would be too light without the weight of CO2 absorbent. Even if nobody noticed how much lighter one rig was when they were passed into the chamber, up into the bell (PTC or Personnel Transfer Capsule in Navy jargon), and put on the diver; you would surely notice being way too buoyant. Second; the Bell Operator and Cannon would have noticed a problem because breathing resistance and bag inflation is much different without absorbent. Third, nobody is sure that the rig that was eventually found to have an empty canister was actually in the water that day, let alone the one Cannon wore. As you can imagine, keeping gear sorted out for forensic investigation was not the big concern in the heat of rescue.

Unfortunately, the classic blue/purple/gray skin color of CO2 poisoning would not have been noticed because they were wearing helium permeated wet suits and were very cold even before getting in the water — everybody's lips and fingernails were blue. The plan was to use electrically heated suits out of the bell, but they were "red tagged" due to electrocution hazard a few days before. Hot Water Suit manifolds had not been installed in the Bell, only the habitat. Some of the schematics I used still had the electric heating systems shown, even though they were gone by the time I came aboard.

Some divers thought Cannon had a heart attach due to the cold. Others thought he was electrocuted. The electrical systems on the Mark II bells were a complete disaster by today's standards, even year$ later when I maintained and dove them. The only detailed uninfluenced first hand written account that I am aware of is Dr. Bond's chronicles published in Papa Topside.

In the end, Sea Lab III would have probably killed someone anyway. The whole program was far too rushed, the move from 200 to 600' was too fast to develop the systems, and there was not enough testing. It took a huge amount of money and three years of work just to get the Mark II system operational. If nothing else, we now know that everyone in Sea Lab would have gotten pneumonia since their breathing gas was not heated. The whole Sea Lab III story is sad.
 
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