THE WORLD BENEATH THE SEA

[Music] this is a man on his way to work beneath the surface of the ocean only a few short years ago this would have been an imaginary scene in a science fiction movie today it's reality we're going to follow men underwater and see some of the unusual equipment and vessels being used to unlock the secrets of the deep today as discovery explores the world beneath the sea [Music] discovery 68 the award-winning program for young people with bill owen hi welcome to discovery these are young purposes man's best friend in the sea as you can see they're gentle playful and friendly with human beings they're also graceful excellent swimmers porpoises are among the most intelligent mammals on earth they can be trained to perform amazing feats jumping as high as 20 feet in the air catching and retrieving specific objects on command [Music] because of their intelligence and ability to learn commands the navy has used train corpuses to deliver messages and run errands for divers working underwater [Applause] the sounds of porpoise makes serve more than one purpose for communication with each other they have a highly developed language they can learn to mimic human words some scientists think as a matter of fact that one day we human beings might be able to communicate directly with porpoises also their sounds are a form of sonar natural sound detecting equipment that enables them to locate their position and find food and other objects underwater our man-made sonar works like this sound waves are broadcast from a ship down through the water the length of time it takes for each wave to bounce back to the ship tells us how far we are from the bottom how the porpoises are able to do all of this is still somewhat of a mystery it's one of many mysteries that oceanography the science of the sea is hoping to solve there are good reasons why most of the ocean remains a mystery first of all it's an unnatural environment for man who must breathe air and fight the tremendous pressure and strange effects of the deep ever since the beginning of recorded history men have been diving in the sea in the 16th century leonardo da vinci drew the first designs for webbed swimming pins for the hands and diving lungs with air hoses da vinci also drew plans for what is believed to be the first submarine helmet or hard hat divers wearing heavy suits and weighted boots with air pumped in through hoses from the surface were first used in salvage work in england in the 18th century and they're still used even today but men dreamed of freeing themselves from captive diving bells from the cumbersome helmeted suits that limited their movement underwater in our century in the 1930s two frenchmen jacques cousteau and emile gagnon were working on something they called an aqualung in 1943 captain cousteau made the first successful sea test of what is known today as scuba gear scuba is spelled s-c-u-b-a the letters stand for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus it delivers compressed air automatically at the correct depth pressure to the diver this single invention was the answer to all the searching finally the world beneath the sea was truly opened up for man to explore but for every step we take in the ocean there are new problems and challenges for example at sea level the atmospheric pressure in our bodies is 14.7 pounds on every square inch because we're accustomed to it we don't feel it we aren't even aware of any pressure but the pressure increases by 14.7 pounds for every 33 feet that we go down beneath the surface at 99 feet it's 59 pounds at 330 feet the pressure is 162 pounds and at one thousand feet it would be over 450 pounds on every square inch of a diver's body fortunately the body is able to withstand some of this pressure but the safe working depth limit for scuba divers is considered to be 300 feet divers wearing special equipment have gone down as far as 728 feet but the pressure of great depths causes nitrogen bubbles to form in the blood this condition is called the bends it's very painful and can even be fatal to allow these nitrogen bubbles to dissolve a scuba diver has to decompress which means to return the surface pressure very slowly for instance after one hour 300 feet a diver must spend seven and one half hours in a special decompression chamber the deeper he goes and the longer he stays the more time he must spend decompressing but if a diver can remain underwater for more than 24 hours he reaches a saturation point after 24 hours he only has to decompress for about 35 hours no matter how long he stays down a week or even a month the next step then a pressure-proof watertight house beneath the sea where divers can return to eat and sleep to live and work in a warm dry shelter we're going to look inside sea lab a house 200 feet beneath the surface of the ocean and we'll do that in just a minute [Music] before the sea lab housing could go into the water a great deal of research had to be done one of the pioneers was captain jacques eve cousteau i have long felt that undersea exploration is not an end in itself although it is spiritually rewarding merely to be an onlooker to enter this great and known medium is the privilege of our era man must and shall colonize the sea flow in 1962 he designed the first continental shelf station called conshelf one a cabin with compressed air where two divers lived 35 feet deep for 69 hours in 1963 in cousteau's con shelf 2 5 divers live for an entire month in an underwater house going out each day to work in the open sea as deep as 100 feet and returning to their house without going to the surface or having to decompress each time for deeper explorations this submarine the diving saucer designed by captain cousteau was also kept below the entire time [Music] in 1964 the u.s navy lowered the first sea lab house sealab one 193 feet to the ocean floor four navy divers used this shelter as a home for 11 days these navy divers brought a new word into our language they were called aquanauts from the latin word aqua meaning water and the greek word not meaning sailor we get aquanaut the aquanauts went from the deck of the support ships on the surface almost 200 feet either by swimming directly down or using this elevator a portable decompression chamber the divers reached sea lab and entered the underwater door through this cage built to keep out sharks the aquanaut swims into the cage comes up through the four foot door the water doesn't rise above the door because the compressed air inside sealab is at the same pressure as the water outside the aquanaut removes his diving gear and enters the living compartment every day the aquanauts went out to study marine life fish and plant specimens taking samples of the ocean bottom photographing and testing new underwater equipment inside with the pressure six times greater than at sea level strange things happen at meal time water heats but never boils you can only bake or broil food no frying matches won't light and with the special mixture of helium and oxygen voices get distorted [Music] at the end of 11 days threatening high waves and winds caused the surface command to order the sea lab brought up from the bottom for safety the four men inside were transferred to the elevator the portable decompression chamber in which they rode to the surface and remained inside to decompress for 31 hours [Music] in 1965 the navy completed an even more extensive man in the sea project c lab 2 with an improved living compartment sealab 2 is 57 feet long and 12 feet in diameter it was submerged off the coast of california near la jolla at a depth of 205 feet three separate teams of 10 aquanauts each stayed down below for 15 days a total of 45 days in all the first two teams were led by commander scott carpenter who came from outer space to inner space with more time on the bottom even more scientific experiments were carried out repairing and assembling oil drilling equipment checking currents sound transmission and reception sampling the sea bottom and observing different kinds of marine life some of the specimens had a chance to observe right back through the portholes tuffy the porpoise who is specially trained for his job proved he was an excellent messenger responding to commands making many trips between sea lab and the surface of course tuffy was well paid in fish for his efforts [Music] they even had daily mail service mail and supplies were carried back and forth in these special containers that resemble pressure cookers the navy is making plans for sealab free this time down to 400 feet or more for an even longer period of time the more we study the ocean the more we realize how much is yet to be learned in addition to houses living quarters and laboratories oceanographers need new undersea vehicles that must be able to travel farther for longer periods of time and to greater depths than divers can venture we're looking at one of our latest small submarine vehicles the perry cub marine this particular one the pc-3b played an important part in the recovery of the hydrogen bomb that was lost in the sea off the coast of spain this is john h perry jr the man who designed it he's one of our country's pioneers in building small undersea craft thank you bill and i'd like to show you how the perry cub marine operates this is a two-man vehicle the pilot sits here and the co-pilot our observer sits back here and we'll close his hatch and then close the pilots hatch and go down and show how they operate [Music] both the pilot and the co-pilot can see quite well through these portholes all around the cockpit this speed control operates the propeller on the stern [Music] the rudder turns it right or left to go up or down you use the planes on the bow by pulling back on this wheel if you're standing still you can't use the rudder to turn right or left you use this knob to turn on the thruster on the bow [Music] if you want to pick up samples or objects on the bottom this mechanical arm can be manipulated from the inside it can pick up objects as light as a pencil or as heavy as 600 pounds you can see why all this equipment is useful when the covering goes underwater the two crew members can stay down and work at 600 feet for 12 hours normally and 24 hours in an emergency making it easier to perform experiments conduct research and collect information from the sea that previously could only be done by divers working at limited depths mr perry in collaboration with another undersea pioneer edwin link is currently working on a new submarine housing that will carry two crew men and two divers in a special decompression chamber they'll be able to work as deep as 1200 feet and stay submerged up to 36 hours there are many other vessels being used for oceanography today some of them more fantastic than even jules bird might have dreamed up we'll see some of these submersibles and we'll find out what it's like to actually dive in one down to 1 000 feet we'll do that in just a minute [Music] this is a scale model of the alvin another of the small oceanographic research vehicles that are actually in operation today the alvin owned by the woods hole oceanographic institution in massachusetts can carry a pilot and two observers down to a depth of 6000 feet for 24 hours or more the large propeller on the stern can be turned from side to side to steer it right and left up and down movement is controlled by the small lift propellers on each side which can be rotated completely around this two-man vehicle designed by the u.s navy is called deep jeep it's able to operate down to 2000 feet and was specially designed for exploring underwater canyons and deep trenches the two crewmen are able to observe directly through the viewing port in front like its namesake this jeep is very easy to maneuver the two rotating motors on the sides enable it to go forward up or down and hover in any position and this strange looking vehicle is called curve the initials c-u-r-v stand for cable-controlled underwater research vehicle it carries no passengers at all it's controlled by cable from a surface ship using the underwater tv camera and sonar to guide it curve is designed to locate and recover objects from the bottom using this mechanical claw up to one ton of weight can be picked up it can go down to 2000 feet and since it's powered by cable from the surface it can stay underwater for an unlimited amount of time what's it like to actually dive down inside one of these submarines this is the famous diving saucer designed by captain cousteau if you were the pilot or the observer you'd climb into the hatch like this check the equipment the lights the ballast weights the mechanical arm [Music] then with everything secure we'd be lowered into the water the saucer doesn't use propellers it's driven and steered by these water jets in shallow water the scuba divers can follow along with us and we can talk to the ships on the surface as we go deeper it's time to turn on the powerful floodlights and the camera now we can see some of the strange plants and animal life down here like these red sea fans and these yellow polyps as we approach the bottom one thousand feet down there's a strange crab [Music] and a giant species of shrimp almost nine inches long a turtle digging for food a thousand feet down down here there are undersea rivers and mountains avalanches of sand tumbling down [Music] after the dive when it's time to return to the surface the divers help attach the lifting line so the crane can haul us back up and then we're safely placed back onto the deck of the ship all of these amazing vehicles are in operation today for the future newer vessels capable of still greater depths to 10 20 and even 30 000 feet are being planned using new fuel cells or nuclear power with new methods of propulsion like this tandem propeller model being tested by the navy instead of metal some of these vessels will be built of glass it's hard to believe but recent tests have shown that a certain type of glass used in undersea equipment actually gets stronger as it goes deeper the more pressure it receives the more it's able to resist so vehicles like this are actually being planned and tested by the us navy as you can see oceanography is moving straight out of the pages of science fiction and into reality perhaps one day you might be living or working in a nuclear-powered city like this beneath the sea going out to explore inner space in small submarines farming the sea for food sources cultivating plankton sea plants like algae and kelp extracting chemicals minerals and a never-ending supply of fresh water from seawater using long trains of undersea barges towed by submarines we could be mining the vast metal deposits and even diamonds on the ocean floor or drilling beneath the bottom for oil these and many other challenges of the sea are all out there waiting for us to conquer them we'll be back in just a minute [Music] we found out that the world beneath the sea holds many unused treasures for us we've seen oceanographers at work the scientists and engineers of the sea we've seen the vessels and equipment of the future we've learned that the sea may be our most important frontier as president john f kennedy once said knowledge of the oceans is more than a matter of curiosity our very survival may depend on it if you'd like to know more about oceanography then ask your librarian for these books men underwater edited by james duggan and richard vayne and science beneath the sea by william m stevens of the university of miami's institute of marine science next week discovery travels just across our northern border into french canada be sure to be with us bye bye the discovery production units domestic transportation arrangements and production consideration provided by united airlines [Music] do [Music] accommodations courtesy of quality courts motels and university in coral gables florida [Music] this has been a jewels power production in association with abc news and public affairs