The Tektite habitat was an underwater laboratory which was the home to divers during Tektite I and II programs. The Tektite program was the first scientists-in-the-sea program sponsored nationally. The habitat capsule was placed in Great Lameshur Bay,

Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands Saint John ( da, Sankt Jan) is one of the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea and a constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincorporated territory of the United States. Saint John () is the smallest of the thre ...

in 1969 and again in 1970.

Habitat

The Tektite habitat was designed and built by General Electric Company Space Division at the Valley Forge Space Technology Center in

King of Prussia, Pennsylvania King of Prussia (also referred to as KOP) is a census-designated place in Upper Merion Township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 22,028. The community took its unusual name in the 18th ...

. The Project Engineer who was responsible for the design of the habitat was Brooks Tenney, Jr. Tenney also served as the underwater Habitat Engineer on the International Mission, the last mission on the Tektite II project. The Program Manager for the Tektite projects was Dr. Theodore Marton at General Electric. The habitat appeared as a pair of silos: two white metal cylinders 12.5 feet (3.81 m) in diameter and 18 feet (5.49 m) high, joined by a flexible tunnel and seated on a rectangular base in 43 feet (13.1 m) depth of water.

Tektite I

On 28 January 1969 a detachment from Amphibious Construction Battalion 2 augmented by an additional 17 Seabee divers from both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets as well as the 21st NCR began the installation of the habitat in Great Lameshur Bay in the U. S. Virgin Islands.Seabeemagazine online
/ref> They had it completed on February 12. On February 15, 1969, three days later, four U.S. Department of Interior scientists (Ed Clifton, Conrad Mahnken, Richard Waller and John VanDerwalker) descended to the ocean floor to begin the ambitious diving project dubbed "Tektite I". By March 18, 1969, the four aquanauts had established a new world's record for saturated diving by a single team. On April 15, 1969, the aquanaut team returned to the surface with over 58 days of marine scientific studies. More than 19 hours of decompression time were needed to accommodate the scientists' return to the surface. The United States Office of Naval Research coordinated Tektite I. Much of the research for Tektite I centered on humans in this new environment. Topics investigated would include:

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

(blood changes, sleep patterns,

oxygen toxicity Oxygen toxicity is a condition resulting from the harmful effects of breathing molecular oxygen () at increased partial pressures. Severe cases can result in cell damage and death, with effects most often seen in the central nervous system, lu ...

), decompression and

decompression sickness Decompression sickness (abbreviated DCS; also called divers' disease, the bends, aerobullosis, and caisson disease) is a medical condition caused by dissolved gases emerging from solution as bubbles inside the body tissues during decompressio ...

, microbiology and

mycology Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy and their use to humans, including as a source for tinder, traditional medicine, food, and entheogen ...

Tektite II

The

United States Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the ma ...

coordinated Tektite II, with part of the funding coming from

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

, which was interested in the psychological study of the scientific teams working in closed environments, similar to that of spacecraft. The missions were carried out in the summer of 1970 in Great Lameshur Bay, St. John Island, U.S. Virgin Islands, at a depth of 43-ft. Tektite II comprised ten missions lasting 10–20 days with four scientists and an engineer on each mission. The fifth mission, designated Mission 6-50, was the first all-female saturation dive team. The elite team of scientist-divers included Renate Schlentz True of

Tulane Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pub ...

, team leader Sylvia Earle, Ann Hurley Hartline and Alina Szmant, graduate students at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Margaret Ann "Peggy" Lucas Bond, a Villanova electrical engineering graduate who served as Habitat Engineer. The Tektite II missions were the first to undertake in-depth ecological studies from a saturation habitat. Medical and human research oversight for Tektite II was well documented in a series of reports covering a project overview, saturation diving, lessons learned from Tektite I, application to Tektite II, medical responsibilities and psychological monitoring, medical supervision duties medical and biological objectives project logistics, lessons learned, excursions to deeper depths from storage pressure,

decompression tables There are several categories of decompression equipment used to help divers decompress, which is the process required to allow divers to return to the surface safely after spending time underwater at higher ambient pressures. Decompression o ...

, general medical observations, psychological observations, blood changes and general program conclusions.

Tektite III

Tektite III (Project Tektite) was a wholly owned and operated California 501 C(3) Non-Profit Corporation. Harold C. Ross was Project Manager. When Tektite II ended General Electric placed the habitat in storage in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

. A group of interested parties purchased the habitat from General Electric for $1.00 with the stipulation it would be removed from the GE storage facility. The habitat was trucked across the United States to

Fort Mason Fort Mason, in San Francisco, California originated as a coastal defense site during the American Civil War. The nucleus of the property was owned by John C. Frémont and disputes over compensation by the United States continued into 1968. In 188 ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

where it was placed on display. Attempts were made to refurbish the habitat so it could be used in San Francisco Bay as a teaching tool. By 1980 the habitat was fully restored and certified to be used underwater, but funds for actually submerging and operating the habitat again were not available. While the habitat was on display at Fort Mason, many school children were taken through the habitat free of charge by volunteers. Unfortunately lack of funds ended the project and the habitat was moved to storage along the

Oakland Estuary The Oakland Estuary is the strait in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, separating the cities of Oakland and Alameda and the Alameda Island from the East Bay mainland. On its western end, it connects to San Francisco Bay proper, while it ...

in 1984. After several years, the habitat again deteriorated. In 1991 the habitat was dismantled by

welding Welding is a fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by using high heat to melt the parts together and allowing them to cool, causing fusion. Welding is distinct from lower temperature techniques such as bra ...

school students and the metal was recycled.Tektite Underwater Habitat Museum - Tektite III
(archived fro

- Note that this page states: "Web page text edited and revised with permission from James W. Miller and Ian G. Koblick's book: ''Living and Working in the Sea'', 1995.

Ecology

There were nine studies on the

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. C ...

fishes Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

carried out during the Tektite series: * influence of

herbivores A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpart ...

on marine plants * bio-acoustic studies * observations on

cleaner shrimp Cleaner shrimp is a common name for a number of swimming decapod crustaceans, that clean other organisms of parasites. They belong to any of three families, Hippolytidae (including the Pacific cleaner shrimp, ''Lysmata amboinensis''), Pala ...

s *

isopods Isopoda is an order of crustaceans that includes woodlice and their relatives. Isopods live in the sea, in fresh water, or on land. All have rigid, segmented exoskeletons, two pairs of antennae, seven pairs of jointed limbs on the thorax, and ...

associated with reef fishes * behavior of reef fishes in relation to fish pots * bioturbation by the sand

tilefish 250px, Blue blanquillo, ''Malacanthus latovittatus'' Tilefishes are mostly small perciform marine fish comprising the family Malacanthidae. They are usually found in sandy areas, especially near coral reefs. Commercial fisheries exist for th ...

* escape response in a

damsel fish Damselfish are those within the subfamilies Abudefdufinae, Chrominae, Lepidozyginae, Pomacentrinae, and Stegastenae within the family Pomacentridae. Most species within this group are relatively small, with the largest species being about 3 ...

* nocturnal- diurnal changeover in activity patterns, and * space resource-sharing

Physiology

A goal of the Tektite program was to prove that

saturation diving Saturation diving is diving for periods long enough to bring all tissues into equilibrium with the partial pressures of the inert components of the breathing gas used. It is a diving mode that reduces the number of decompressions divers working ...

techniques in an underwater laboratory, breathing a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere could be safely and efficiently accomplished at a minimal cost. Lambertsen's "Predictive Studies Series" that started with Tektite I in 1969 and ended in 1997, researched many aspects of human

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

in extreme environments.

Habitat

Tektite I

Tektite II

Tektite III

Ecology

Physiology

See also

References

Further reading