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This book is dedicated to Nitrox rebreather diving and the basic principles and skills that every rebreather diver should know and master. It covers some topics like balance and trim with a rebreather, risk management, and proper Nitrox dive planning.
Deep-sea observatory goes live
Construction of the observatory was coordinated by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). According to Marcia McNutt, MBARI president and CEO, "Getting all of the components of the observatory to work together perfectly in the remote, unforgiving, inhospitable environment of the deep sea was no easy task. But the tougher the challenge, the greater the glory when it is finally achieved. Some day we may look back at the first packets of data streaming in from the MARS observatory as the equivalent of those first words spoken by Alexander Graham Bell: 'Watson, come here, I need you!'"
Like the Hubble Space Telescope, the MARS Observatory is not designed for human occupation, but is operated remotely. The observatory will serve as both a "power strip" and a "high-speed internet connection" for scientific instruments in the deep sea. It will allow marine scientists to continuously monitor the dark, mysterious world of the deep sea, instead of relying on brief oceanographic cruises and instruments that run on batteries.
The heart of observatory consists of two titanium pressure cylinders packed with computer networking and power distribution equipment. These cylinders are nestled within a protective metal pyramid on the deep seafloor. This central hub is connected to shore by a 52-kilometer-long cable that can carry up to 10,000 watts of power and two gigabits per second of data. Most of the cable is buried a meter (three feet) below the seafloor.
Over the next few months, a variety of scientific instruments will be hooked up to the observatory using underwater "extension cords." These will include instruments to monitor earthquakes and to capture deep-sea animals on video. Researchers will also be testing an experiment to study the effects of ocean acidification on seafloor animals. MBARI technicians will use remotely operated vehicles (robot submarines) to plug these instruments into the central hub. After the instruments are hooked up, researchers will be able to run experiments and study deep-sea data and images from anywhere in the world.
Researchers whose experiments are hooked up to the MARS observatory will no longer have to worry about their instruments' batteries wearing out, because their experiments will get all of their electrical power from shore. Even better, researchers won't have to wait for weeks or months to recover their instruments and find out how the experiments turned out. They will be able to look at data and video from the deep sea in real time, 24 hours a day. This will allow researchers will to know immediately if their experiments are working or not.
Providing a place for researchers to test their deep-sea instruments is one of the primary goals of the MARS observatory. Many instruments will be tested on MARS before being hooked up to other deep-sea observatories offshore of the U. S. and other countries.
Funded in 2002 by a grant from the National Science Foundation, the MARS Observatory was constructed through a collaborative effort by MBARI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, L-3 Communications MariPro, and Alcatel-Lucent. Each group was responsible for preparing a different part of the observatory. According to Keith Raybould, the MARS project manager, "MARS was a very challenging project. Our academic partners and contractors used many new, cutting-edge technologies. Everything had to be carefully coordinated so that all the parts of the system would work together seamlessly."
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