Fabien Cousteau plans 31-day underwater mission

[Buster's Uncle]

Fabien Cousteau plans 31-day underwater mission
Associated Press
By JENNIFER KAY  7 hours ago



This 2012 photo provided by Mission 31, Fabien Cousteau sits inside Aquarius Reef Base in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Beginning Sunday, June 1, 2014, the filmmaker and Jacques Cousteau’s grandson plans to spend 31 days living underwater at the lab, making a documentary and leading a five-person crew on science experiments. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Mission 31)



ISLAMORADA, Fla. (AP) — Like viewers worldwide, Fabien Cousteau was entranced by his famous grandfather's films about marine life and human exploration underwater. Now he's adding to his family's sea stories with a 31-day underwater expedition in the Florida Keys.

Cousteau dove Sunday to Aquarius Reef Base, a school bus-sized laboratory 60 feet below the ocean's surface, a few miles off Key Largo. He plans to spend more than a month living underwater with a five-person crew, making a documentary and leading science experiments on the nearby coral reef.

Before their boat left an Islamorada dock Sunday morning, Cousteau and his crew said they would miss seeing the sun for more than month, but they weren't nervous about being isolated in the undersea lab.

"I imagine we'll want to stay down once we get comfy down there," Cousteau said. "We won't want to come back up to the surface because it's such a magical place."

The idea for "Mission 31" came to Cousteau two years ago when he visited Aquarius during a fundraising push to save the lab, which federal budget cuts had threatened to permanently close.

"It reminded me that I've always wanted to live underwater," Cousteau said Saturday at his training base in Islamorada.



This 2012 photo provided by Mission 31, Fabien Cousteau sits in the entrance to Aquarius Reef Base in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Beginning Sunday, June 1, 2014, the filmmaker and Jacques Cousteau’s grandson plans to spend 31 days living underwater at the lab, making a documentary and leading a five-person crew on science experiments. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Mission 31)


"Mission 31" builds on the legacy of Conshelf II, the 30-day underwater living experiment in the Red Sea that Jacques Cousteau filmed in 1963 for his Oscar-winning documentary "World Without Sun."

The younger Cousteau can do something his grandfather could not: broadcast the entire adventure live online and communicate with the public through social media and video chats with classrooms on land.

"For the first time I'm able to invite the world on a Cousteau expedition in real time," said Cousteau, who has filmed documentaries on sharks and other marine life.

Jacques Cousteau was revered worldwide for exploring the ocean in a multitude of documentaries and books, as well as for pioneering the advanced scuba diving techniques used at Aquarius. While he developed underwater living experiments out of the belief that an overpopulated world might drive humans to live in the oceans, interest in the habitats waned through the decades until Aquarius was the last underwater research lab.

His grandson believes interest in the oceans is reviving as climate change threatens to disrupt life on land.



Fabien Cousteau stands in front of one of the wetsuits, on Sunday, June 1, 2014, in Islamorada, Fla., that his team will wear while scuba diving at Aquarius Reef Base in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Cousteau plans to spend 31 days underwater at Aquarius, leading a team of researchers and making a documentary. (AP Photo/Jennifer Kay)


"Whether you care about economics, in your personal life or your business life, whether you care about your health or your child's health, whether you care about saving creatures, it all pertains to making sure that our oceans are healthy. And our oceans are not," Cousteau said.

Throughout the expedition, Florida International University and Northeastern University researchers will study the effects of climate change and pollution on the coral reef. The crew will experiment with new technology that uses sonar to create three-dimensional video images, allowing them to gather data and footage without lights that would disrupt the fish.

Diving with a Cousteau helps bring more attention to the scientific work being performed at Aquarius, said Andy Shantz, an FIU researcher who will spend half the month living and working at the base.

"These are really important issues and to be able to bring that out and get a bit of a spotlight on the research and the science behind it is awesome," Shantz said.

The 400-square-foot pressurized Aquarius lab has six bunk beds and allows scientists to live and work underwater and scuba dive for extended periods of time, without needing to return to the surface or decompress. It's owned by the U.S. government and operated by FIU.



Fabien Cousteau waves, on Sunday, June 1, 2014, from the boat ferrying him from Florida International University's Medina Aquarius Program headquarters in Islamorada, Fla., to the waters above Aquarius Reef Base in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Cousteau plans to spend 31 days underwater at Aquarius, leading a team of researchers and making a documentary. (AP Photo/Jennifer Kay)


Astronauts train at Aquarius to simulate living and working in outer space. The lab's technological edge doesn't extend to its kitchen area. "Unfortunately for me as a French person, the food also will be simulated. Freeze-dried, astronaut type of food, canned foods, things like that," Cousteau said, grimacing.

Cousteau plans to resurface July 2, at the end of the longest mission ever held at Aquarius since it began operations in 1993.

___

Online:

Mission 31: www.mission-31.com


http://news.yahoo.com/fabien-cousteau-plans-31-day-underwater-mission-135118292.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Jacques Cousteau's grandson aims for record 31 days undersea
Reuters
By Zachary Fagenson  May 31, 2014 9:07 AM



APRIL 9 1995 FILER - Captain Jacques Yves Cousteau, the French marine explorer died in Paris June 25. Cousteau, 87, campaigned vigourously against marine pollution. He popularised underwater exploration with the help of a French engineer Emile Gagnan when they built the first skin-diving suit in 1943. FRANCE COUSTEAU - RTR4RNZ



MIAMI (Reuters) - The grandson of famed oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau will embark on a month-long stay inside an undersea laboratory off the Florida Keys in an attempt to break a half-century-old record set by his late grandfather.

After years of planning and delays, Fabien Cousteau will make a 60-foot (18-meter) dive on Sunday in an attempt to spend 31 days in a laboratory known as Aquarius, observing fish behavior, studying the impact of ocean pollution and warming seas on coral reefs, and measuring the effect of lengthy underwater stays on the human body.

"There are a lot of challenges physically and psychologically," said Cousteau, 46, who was born in Paris and grew up on his grandfather's ships, Calypso and Alcyone.

"The benefit is that the backyard is infinite."

Cousteau will be living and working underwater with a team of researchers and documentary filmmakers. If he succeeds in spending the entire time submerged, Cousteau will beat the 30-day underwater record set 50 years ago in the Red Sea by his grandfather.

The cylindrical 43-foot (13-meter) Aquarius is the last undersea laboratory still operating. It sits on a patch of sand near deep coral reefs about 9 miles (14.5 km) south of Key Largo, Florida.

It is "the best-kept secret in the oceans," Cousteau told Reuters in 2013.

Dozens of other undersea labs around the world have been mothballed due to high costs. In 1963, Jacques-Yves Cousteau along with a half-dozen divers he dubbed oceanauts spent 30 days inside an undersea lab called Conshelf II near the Port of Sudan.

Aquarius is air conditioned with wireless Internet access, a shower, a bathroom, six bunks and portholes that give the occupants a 24-hour view of the surrounding marine life.

The living space is at a depth where the atmospheric pressure is roughly two-and-a-half to three times that at the surface. It will be pressurized to prevent decompression sickness, when human tissue absorbs gases like nitrogen in dangerously high volumes.

Beyond the otherworldly experience, the benefit of living underwater is it will help scientists with their day-to-day research and data collection.

Researchers studying the effects of coral bleaching – when warming waters prompt the living coral to expel the colorful algae living inside – will depart Aquarius at the crack of dawn each morning to study the reefs' energy production before the day begins.

"Day in, day out, our science schedule is pretty repetitive. I think the documentary guys are going to get bored," said Andrew Shantz, a Ph.D. candidate in marine ecoscience at Florida International University, who will spend 17 days in the lab.

Following the morning dive, teams will return to the station to speak via Skype with classrooms around the world and test how the extended stay at depth affects their bodies.

They will re-emerge from Aquarius in scuba gear around noon and after night falls to collect additional data that would be impossible without the underwater lab.

"You end up getting these structured, regimented observations that you don't get on a single dive," Shantz said.

(Editing by Kevin Gray and Jan Paschal)


http://news.yahoo.com/jacques-cousteaus-grandson-aims-record-31-days-undersea-130712964--spt.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Jacques Cousteau's grandson starts planned 31-day undersea stay
Reuters
By Zachary Fagenson  7 hours ago



MIAMI (Reuters) - Fabien Cousteau, grandson of famed oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, descended on Sunday for a planned month-long undersea stay in laboratory off Florida, attempting to break a record for a similar sojourn set by his grandfather a half century ago.

Cousteau, along with two more so-called "aquanauts" plan to spend 31 days at a depth of about 60 feet (18-meters) in a 43-foot-long laboratory named Aquarius in the turquoise waters off the Florida Keys, monitoring marine life and filming the environment.

In 1963, Jacques-Yves Cousteau spent 30 days in a similar facility in depths of about 30 feet in the Red Sea.

"We're marking a new era in ocean exploration," said Cousteau, 46, who was born in Paris and grew up on his grandfather's ships, Calypso and Alcyone.

Teams of researchers from Florida International University in Miami, which owns Aquarius, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Northeastern University will rotate two week stays undersea.

Aquarius is air conditioned with wireless Internet access, a shower, a bathroom, six bunks and portholes that give the occupants a 24-hour view of the surrounding marine life.

Divers will use a technique called saturation diving where the undersea habitat is pressurized to mimic what is found on earth's surface and prevent decompression sickness, when human tissue can absorb gases like nitrogen in dangerously high volumes.

Researchers will host Skype interviews with classrooms around the world and will have several dives to study wildlife and coral reefs surrounding Aquarius.

"This is the first time the public will be able to take part in a Cousteau expedition live," Cousteau said.

"My grandfather would’ve loved it."

(Editing by Jon Herskovitz)


http://news.yahoo.com/jacques-cousteaus-grandson-starts-planned-31-day-undersea-171212647.html