'Sealab' by Ben Hellwarth

Sealab, Ben Hellwarth (3.0)

This book was advertised as ‘The Right Stuff’ for ocean exploration. I understand the analogy and it is somewhat accurate, though it implies a drama that was missing from the retelling of the attempts to establish a residence on the ocean shelf – 300 to 1000 ft below the sea.  As Mr. Hellwarth explains, while the Apollo missions enjoyed both money from the government and attention from the world, the Sealab projects had little support on either front.  The most surprising thing to me was how precarious the situation was to the ‘aquanauts’ with every addition atmosphere of pressure they experienced.  It cam across as much more dynamic details, it was an eye opener with regards to the types of dangers encountered as we explored the depths of the oceans.  It also pointed out that Jacques Cousteau was quite a showman, but didn’t achieve many of the records for depth of length of time at these depths.  There was also a very interesting story at the end of how some of the experience and knowledge gained by the aquanauts was used to do some spying during the cold war.