An experimental deployment of a portable inflatable habitat in open water to augment lengthy in-water decompression by scientific divers

Undersea living in the science community has effectively risen and fallen within the last half century. The paradigm of residing on the seafloor within a fixed, permanent structure, while body tissues are saturated with inert breathing gasses, provides for extended-duration excursions from such a structure, although limits geographical productivity to within reasonable proximity of the habitat structure itself. Saturation diving exploration with science motives provided an exciting opportunity during the 1960s and 1970s, with timing lending itself well to providing a sea-to-space analog for human residence in a remote and confined space, as the space race was underway. With limited saturation diving for science occurring presently, today's marine science paradigm is trending toward advanced autonomous diving technologies and techniques, including mixed-gas use, rebreathers, and staged decompression. These emerging technologies afford an enhanced "commodity-style" approach to exploration, in which diving scientists can travel to any remote locale and spend longer durations underwater than they can with the previous and more common paradigm of lightweight, travel-friendly, conventional open-circuit scuba (using air as the breathing medium). Amiss in the new paradigm is the practical extension of depth. This is well within reach with the use of emerging technologies; however, end-users are often dissuaded from the incurrence of lengthy decompression (exposure to the marine environment during what is effectively an extended idle time) that is required when scientists return from relatively short working periods at extended depths. In an effort to address these issues, we describe here the development and experimental deployment of a new class of portable inflatable underwater habitats that provide for rapid deployments, free from surface support augmentation requirements typical of the existing alternatives for lengthy decompression dives. In the context of vastly expanding the commoditystyle diving requirements of today's marine scientist and engineers, particularly in terms of increased depth and duration, we also discuss the further research and development applications that these habitats make possible.