An astronaut in space holds a conversation with an aquanaut underwater, marking another milestone in human communication.
Astronaut Gordon Cooper, orbiting the earth with Pete Conrad in Gemini 5, hooked up by radiotelephone with an old pal, astronaut-turned-aquanaut Scott Carpenter, who was living and working 205 feet under the Pacific Ocean near La Jolla, California, aboard Sealab II.
The two men had known each other since 1959, when they were among NASA’s original seven Project Mercury astronauts. Carpenter, a former navy pilot, had already been in space, the solo astronaut on a mistake-plagued, three-orbit flight aboard Aurora 7 that resulted in his effectively being grounded. He then joined the navy’s Sealab II project as a training officer.
Cooper and Conrad, meanwhile, were nearing the end of an eight-day orbital mission to test human endurance in space. Eight days would be the time needed to travel to the moon and back (see here).
The radio hookup was partly a gimmick, taking advantage of Carpenter’s astronaut status to publicize the Sealab II project. But it was also a method of testing the effectiveness of an underwater electronics lab installed aboard the submersible. Nor was it the only long-distance call made from Sealab II. The aquanauts also spoke with President Lyndon Johnson at the White House and with Jacques Cousteau’s (see here) Conshelf III team conducting a similar underwater-habitat test in the Mediterranean.
Carpenter re-created his sea-bed-to-space call in 1995, chatting with astronauts aboard the space shuttle Endeavour while staying at Jules’ Undersea Lodge off Key Largo, Florida.—TL