Undersea Research Project

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31786, 17 September 1968, Page 18

Undersea Research Project

(From FRANK OLIVER, special correspondent N.Z.P.A.) MIAMI. The warm seas in this area are becoming a principal centre for undersea exploration and research. Man is beginning to learn now to live and work under water. There are multi-million dollar plans on paper for manned under-water stations. One, at least, will soon be ready for operation and in a year or two a 10-man station named Atlantis will be placed at the bottom of the sea, a thousand feet down, near Miami. Others will follow. Off Palm Beach, a short distance up the coast, a curious kind of submarine called the Ben Franklin is now undergoing tests and when they are complete, early next year, Jacques Piccard, the scientist, and his crew of five will be placed in the Gulf Stream just off Palm Beach and will spend the next few weeks drifting with the Gulf Stream and will finally surface somewhere off the coast of Massachusetts. In the Virgin Islands, a smaller undersea station called the Tektite, is also engaged in under-sea observations. These three machines have to do with the future, exploring ocean depths, making observations nf all kinds, measuring salinity, current flow, collecting samples of marine life, exploring the possibilities of recovering oil and mineral deposits from the seabed. A little further afield, off the coast of Jamaica, there is another undersea adventure going forward, but it looks tu the past rather than the future. There, divers hope to raise one or both of two of the ships of Columbus which sank 466 years ago. The 19705, says one expert, will be the big decade for oceanographers, a period during which man will probably achieve the capability of comfortable living and working on the world’s continental shelves and even in the deep ocean areas. Two Caravels To deal first with the past. In 1503 Columbus ran two caravels, the Santiago and the Capitana, on to a sand bank off the north coast of Jamaica to save his men from drowning in the hurricaneswept waters of the Caribbean. This was during his fourth voyage to these parts. Two divers have found the wrecks and a few things from them have proved that these really are the ships, which now lie in mud under 15ft of water. The effort is being financed by the Jamaican Government, by French financiers and by the Ford Foundation of the United States. The Kingston Government has retained the services of two preservation experts, Mr Jeabons Baillie, of New Zealand and Mr Gary Thompson, of England, who will be in charge of all artifacts brought to the surface. To uncover the ancient ships the divers will use special fans manufactured in Florida which, it is hoped, will gently blow away the Bft of silt and mud covering the wrecked shins. The words of Columbus led the divers to this find. He wrote, “We grounded the caravels in a small harbour enclosed wi)h reefs near an Indian village, a crossbow shot from land and near two freshwater creeks.” First, the divers hope to establish the state of the superstructures and "if>they are intact, as we

hope they are, we will try to raise the whole ships. If not, we will have to bring them up piece by piece.”

If the rib structure of either ship is intact the Ford Foundation has agreed to toss in half a million dollars with the idea of rebuilding at least one of the caravels and stocking it with artifacts recovered from both wrecks. Artifacts already taken from the encircling mud include wood, ballast stone, iron nails, a ceramic shard, Venetian glass, flint, charcoal, animal bones and black beans. These went to experts who by car-bon-dating them confirmed that they came from the ships of Columbus.

In the projects looking to the future the Atlantis is a $5O million permanent station for the ocean bottom near Miami, a station that could become the first link in a chain of underwater defence stations ringing the nation. Involved in it are industry and the Government and it is headed by the Institute of Marine Science of

the University of Miami. It is hoped that it can be in operation by 1971. Dr Lloyd Stover, of that university, says he and his fellow scientists believe "that a continental shelf test facility like Atlantis is needed. It will be able to test weapons systems and components, test what man can do under the sea, operating techniques for the oil industry, underwater mining and a long list of other functions.”

Atlantis will be like a giant 80ft sausage with a superstructure in which 10 men can live comfortably and work. These men can be ferried back and forth by a submarine tender able to lock on to a hatch on Atlantis to load and unload men and supplies. Inside they will breathe air at the same pressure as on the surface. In the superstructure will be a high pressure sealed chamber to allow divers to pressurise and leave Atlantis for experiments on the ocean bottom. Inside, scientists will be working on bottom-mining

techniques, undersea oil research and food-from-the-sea programmes. The 130-ton Ben Franklin, named for the statesmanscientist who first plotted the Gulf Stream as an aid to mariners, was assembled in Europe. Early next year it will begin its 1500-mile drift up that stream to Massachusetts, travelling roughly five miles an hour and hovering at depths from 500 ft to 2000 ft.

While the Gulf Stream will be its “motive power” it has four 25 horse-power engines which can be brought into use if it tends to drift out of the stream. Round it will be 29 viewing ports from which, with the aid of floodlights, it will be possible to photograph its surroundings. The six men aboard will always be in touch with the surface by radio. Its mission is to study marine life, currents, underwater acoustics and other matters, “in this fantastically big river in the sea with more water than all the rivers of the world together,” as Dr Piccard puts it.

i He adds that life aboard will be relatively comfortable, (each man his own bunk, | a roomy wardroom, fresh (water showers, washing and i toilet facilities and hot meals ! provided from freeze-dried ; dehydrated foods. 1 Two members of the crew ! will be from the Navy’s ! Oceanographic Office. Dr Piccard describes the projected voyage as “a long walk into a long, long corridor closed continuously by hundreds of doors. Our job is to open some of those doors.” The Virgin Islands underwater station is named Tektite and will be unique in that it will maintain the same internal pressure as the sea pressure outside. The crew will breathe an oxygen-nitro-gen mixture and when body tissues become “saturated” with this it will permit divers to live on the ocean floor for long periods without concern for the usual decompression time. The Tektite will be at a depth of 50ft and four scientists will live aboard her for two months.