Steel Albatross

[nativenarcosis]

Did any of you guys ever read a book written by Scott Carpenter years back named Steel Albatross?? It has been a long time since I have but I remember some really innovative ideas that came out of it and being Scott was on a lot of underwater project, how much of it was 'based' on fact and polished up a little to make a good book. One for instance was the rebreather that used a form of hemoglobin to extract O2 from seawater. Is any of this in practice??

 

[BigJetDriver]

The haemoglobin-sponge rebreather is a fascinating idea, along with various liquid-breathing experiments, but neither has gotten out of the lab experiment stage yet.

The various aquanauts (the real government certified variety) who worked on Tektite I and II and other projects such as SeaLab used a General Electric-built mixed gas rebreather called the Mark Ten, but, to tell the truth, by comparison with today's units, it was extremely crude.