The designer and builder of these 1-man, 

 250-foot vehicles is Captain George Kit- 

 tredge, USN (Ret.) of Kittredge Industries, 

 Warren, Maine. Several K-250's have been 

 built and sold, and Captain Kittredge offers a 

 15-page brochure (for a nominal fee) which 

 relates the vehicle's design, his history as a 

 builder and his personal philosophy as re- 

 gards design of various submarine systems. 

 Kittredge's naval experiences included a 

 tour of duty as commanding officer of a Navy 

 submarine, so he comes into the submersible 

 field with credentials as appropriate as any. 

 For this reason it is interesting to examine 

 an approach to life support which is radically 

 different from those of all of his associates in 

 deep submergence; the following quote is 

 from his brochure entitled K-250. 



"From time to time, people ask us 

 what we do about air for breathing in 

 our submarines. The answer is that we 

 use the same method that was used in 

 U.S. Navy submarines during World 

 War II: namely, we breath the atmos- 

 phere inside the submarine. Theoreti- 

 cally, there is sufficient oxygen in the 

 atmosphere inside the submarine to 

 last six hours; however, in actual 

 practice we recommend surfacing and 

 reventilating every hour. This takes 

 less than five minutes and is the easi- 

 est, simplest, and safest thing to do. 



We do not recommend carrying contr 

 pressed oxygen in the submarine for 

 two reasons. A leak in the oxygen 

 system would build up an internal 

 pressure in the submarine and could 

 prove toxic to the operator. Secondly, 

 an oxygen enriched atmosphere could 

 result in a fire hazard. While oxygen 

 itself will not burn, it supports com- 

 bustion. The space capsule fire that 

 took the lives of three astronauts is a 

 good example of what can happen 

 when you have an oxygen enriched 

 atmosphere in a confined space. Nor 

 do we recommend the use of CO2 ab- 

 sorbent in our submarines. CO2 ab- 

 sorbent can defeat the only means a 

 human body has of detecting "bad 

 air." Almost everyone has, at one time 

 or another, been in a crowded room 



and heard someone say, "It's getting 

 stuffy in here. Let's open a window." 

 What actually happened in such a 

 case, was that the level of CO2 in the 

 room had built up and increased the 

 acidity of the blood. That part of the 

 brain known as the '^obligata med- 

 ulla" detects an increase in the acid- 

 ity of the blood. Thus, the human body 

 can detect a high concentration ofCO^ 

 but it cannot detect a deficiency of 

 oxygen. The most dangerous thing that 

 could be done in the above example of 

 the crowded room, would be to use CO2 

 absorbent. 



So this is the system we recommend. 

 Surface and ventilate the submarine 

 every hour or more often if you 

 "think" the air in the submarine is 

 getting foul. This is the safest, sim- 

 plest, and least expensive procedure to 

 follow." 



From a technical point of view Kittredge's 

 philosophy is unassailable. The medulla ob- 

 longata will indeed warn of excess carbon 

 dioxide, but if one reviews the incidents re- 

 lated in Chapter 15, there are times when 

 the window in the submersible's "stuffy 

 room" cannot be opened. Captain Kittredge's 

 approach to life support stands alone in the 

 field of deep submergence. 



BEN FRANKLIN: 



Relative to military submarines, which can 

 stay routinely submerged for 60 days, BEN 

 franklin's 30-day submergence was no re- 

 cord-breaker. However, a nuclear submarine, 

 in regards to life support, differs from BEN 

 FRANKLIN in the following: It extracts oxy- 

 gen from seawater; it removes carbon diox- 

 ide through a process not requiring vast 

 stores of scrubbing compound; trace contam- 

 inants are automatically monitored and con- 

 trolled; heaters and air conditioning control 

 the atmosphere; food is stored and prepared 

 as it is on surface ships; water is manufac- 

 tured onboard; metabolic wastes are stored 

 and then dumped overboard; and space, 

 though not overexcessive, is in greater abun- 

 dance. The reason for these differences re- 

 sides in a nuclear submarine's abundant 

 electrical power and great size relative to 

 the 750-kwh, id-foot-long BEN FRANKLIN. 



438 



