CHAPTER I 

 INTRODUCTION 



The project title comes from the small meteorites which survive the fiery 

 plunge through the earth's atmosphere and often come to rest on the ocean's 

 floor. The name was selected to symbolically link oceanographic and space 

 scientific interests in national undersea programs. 



TEKTITE I took place during the period February 15 to April 15, 1969. Four 

 aquanauts from the Department of the Interior spent the planned 60 days on the 

 ocean floor in the Virgin Islands at a depth of approximately 50 feet. There 

 were no significant medical or behavioral problems during the mission, and the 

 results clearly indicated that it was safe to expose personnel to these depths 

 while saturating their body tissues with a breathing mixture of 92% nitrogen 

 and 87o oxygen.* In addition, a marine scientific program was initiated which 

 revealed the many advantages of conducting such investigations while living on 

 the ocean floor. 



The success of TEKTITE I stimulated increased interest in sea floor habitation 

 both nationally and internationally. Because of this interest, other agencies 

 of the Government as well as members of the academic and industrial community 

 expressed a desire to continue such programs. This interest culminated in an 

 interagency top-level meeting in September 1969 which provided the official 

 impetus for developing a TEKTITE II program in which the Department of the 

 Interior would serve as lead agency. 



While TEKTITE I was primarily a feasibility program, TEKTITE II had many and 

 various goals. As in TEKTITE I, the program was designed to permit marine 

 scientists to carry out a variety of in situ research missions under saturated 

 diving conditions. While these scientists were conducting their underwater 

 research missions, they were under observation by behavioral and biomedical 

 teams whose objectives were to add to and further refine the behavioral and 

 physiological studies initiated in TEKTITE I. 



While the basic science programs were the core and principal purpose of con- 

 ducting TEKTITE II, there were other aspects to the program. A total of 53 

 aquanauts were given the opportunity to experience first hand the advantages 

 and disadvantages of conducting research from the ocean floor. This signifi- 

 cantly increases the cadre of this country's aquanaut scientists and gives the 



* Saturation refers to the state of dissolved gases in the tissues of the diver. 

 Under a saturated condition the tissues have absorbed all the nitrogen or 

 other inert gases possible. Once this has occurred, the decompression time 

 required at the end of the dive at a given depth does not increase with 

 additional time spent at that depth. Under such conditions, the diver works 

 out of a habitat whose atmosphere is maintained at approximately the same 

 pressure as that of the water in which he will be working. His habitat may 

 be an ocean floor installation or may be a pressurized chamber on board a 

 surface vessel from which he travels to his work location in a pressurized 

 personnel transfer capsule. In either case he does not undergo decompression 

 between dives; he is decompressed only after the total dive sequence is 

 completed. 



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