And Now... From A Submarine!

Andrea: Good morning everyone and welcome from the Learning Technologies Channel. I'm Andrea McCurty and I work with the Quest Project Team. We're working today with the Channel Islands National Park. This is the first in a series what we hope will be a long partnership. Where we are trying to bring the Park into the classroom, if you will, via the Internet. I'll be talking today with two people, Laura and Tom, and Tom is actually on the ship where the submarine has originated from and he works with the Channel Islands National Park. So I'm going to turn it over to Tom and let him talk about the environment on the ship and introduce you to Laura who will be talking from the submarine. Tom?

Tom: Hi, Andrea. Hello everybody. We're out here on the motor vessel "cavalier" and we have launched the two-person submarine "Delta" with Laura, as you saw on your text there, she is a biologist from the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. We are two miles off the south side of the west end of Santa Cruz Island in Southern California. Just off the coast of Santa Barbara and Ventura, right herein the waters of Channel Islands National Park. We're hearing from Laura, she's down about 730 feet, she just broadcast and she's in a place where it's pretty cool, no one's ever been there before. We're going to talk to her and find out what she sees. I think she's pretty excited already. Let's get going and see what we can hear from her. Laura, this is Tom. How you doing down there? And tell me what you see?

Laura: Hey, Tom, this is the "Delta" sub, we're at 750feet. I'm here with Chris, and we see some beautiful spotted --also large area of crab, several different squid.

Tom: Very bad, we read you pretty well let's find out how they're doing on the Internet here. Andrea, how do you read us? Yes, Laura, we're live to the world on the Internet.

Andrea: I read you just fine, sounds great.

Laura: This is so exciting to be down here in a submarine, at a place where very few people actually get to explore. We know so little about this area, and diving down here in a submersible is the most wonderful way to see all of the animals that live down here.

Tom: Yes, I bet it's beautiful, Laura. Why don't you try to describe, are you down near the ocean floor or are you up in blue water? Can you see the bottom, are you on the bottom?

Laura: We are -- it's at an angle about 16 or 80 degrees here. It's covered with a silt-like substance, covered with a fine layer of sand, and around this wall, looking at the wonderful creatures that live down here.

Tom: There is a lot of silt and a lot of sand covering the rocky substrate, is that what you said, a lot of silt and sand?

Laura: Yes, it's a combination of rocky substrate with silt and sand over the top. And as we curve along the wall, it's a type of red pad here. The curve seems to -- I don't think these small little crabs, about two or three inches, would be able to do much to this submarine down here. It's quite a sensation being in here. These submarines are actually quite small. 15 1/2 feet long. There are two of us in here and I'm lying down on my stomach, looking out, and the pilot is sitting in a chair. There is something really beautiful by the porthole, looks like a common squid, looks like it's looking right at me. Big bright eye, kind of checking me out, checking the squid out.

Tom: Are you checking the squid out, are you its predator?

Laura: We're not a predator, it's sticking its tentacle on to the porthole and it looks like it's looking at me. It's really quite amazing. This is a very good habitat for them.

Tom: Good copy there Laura. Stand by for a moment. Laura is down there still, probably something like 7 hubfeet, and -- 700 feet, we're hearing her good there. Andrea?

Andrea: It's breaking up quite a bit.

Tom: We'll try to make it better.

Laura: 740 feet.

Tom: What is your heading, which direction are you going, and are you getting deeper, or shallower.

Laura: We are heading to the west, and we are headed --there is a rock wall above us, that is causing probably the communications problem that you are hearing.

Tom: Okay, thanks for that. We hear some clicking and squeaking. I think it's dolphin noises. Do you hear that, too?

Laura: You're absolutely right, Tom. That clicking and squeaking that you hear, we have picked up in the communication down here, we picked up dolphin noises. It would be pretty amazing to see the doll -- Dolphins out here. Maybe when we head up to the surface we'll see the Dolphins up there. The rock wall that was above us, they're covered with lots of -- probably the most common animals that I see are the types of red crab. And remember that squid that I mentioned earlier, the squid is very interested in the submarine and still around here.

Tom: We read you real well, Laura. Just wanted to tell you that your dolphin friends are up here on the surface, we have about a dozen common Dolphins that just came by right here in front of the ship. So maybe that's what our, all that background noise was. It was real nice. Maybe they'll come see you on your ascent. I don't think they go very deep, maybe only a couple hundred feet, its that right?

Laura: We'll probably see it when we go up to the surface. The dolphins won't probably be coming into the deep section here. We're continuing to go up the wall, we are at 630 feet of depth.

Tom: Very good, Laura. Let's check with Andrea and the folks on the Internet to see if they can hear us real well. It sounds good on the ship.

Tom, we are having a little trouble, she's getting garbled again.

Tom: She's just starting to come in really clear here.

Laura: In the submarine, it was like coming through incredible snowstorm, there is this white material, it's called marine snow, and it looks like a big snowstorm, even like a bunch of stars. It was really beautiful. We could see some of that marine snow closer to the bottom, and that is something that the animals feed on. Off to my right porthole there is a type of mollusk, it's very shiny, very beautiful. I've probably never seen it, it is only found in the deep depth that is a submarine can dive in, probably something that would not be normally seen by scuba divers.

Tom: Good copy. Well there's probably lots of things you're seeing that aren't seen by scuba divers. Specifically White Abalone, have you seen any of those? So far, Laura?

Laura: No, Tom, we've been looking for White Abalone, in this canyon it may not be perfect for White Abalone. It's very silty, sandy, and they tend to be found in rocky reef areas, and White Abalone are found usually shallower than we are now, as well. Maybe about 200 feet. So maybe as we ascend closer to the surface, we'll see some White Abalone then. I know yesterday in the sub, I think there were four or five White Abalone observed. That was at Santa Barbara Island.

Tom: Okay, good copy there Laura. Why don't you stand by for a minute and take a rest. And we'll get right back to you.

Laura: Roger that, Tom. Standing by.

Tom: Andrea, can you hear us right now?

Andrea: Yes.

Tom: Are we still on, is everything working well?

Andrea: Yes, everything seems fine.

Tom: Well, it looks like the sub is coming up from, they had gone immediately to about 920 feet to start, we found out the communications weren't perfect for transmitting up and all the way through the whole circuit to get it on to the Internet. We're bringing it up slowly and she needs to move more into a rocky, hard rocky habitat. There's more -- that's more desirable for abalone. Sandy and silty soil. We are in a deep canyon that's susceptible to strong currents and there is a lot of sloughing off of cliffs, a lot of erosion. That's why the sand and silt is all stacked up. It doesn't sound like it's blowing around, pretty calm down there right now. Our surface conditions here on top of the ocean is very, very clear day, have a light blue sky and a dark blue ocean with just a little bit of wind on the ocean. As I said before, we're about half a mile off of Gull Island, off the south end of Santa Cruz. She has mentioned some things like dolphin noises and we haven't talked to her about it, if she's seen any kind of marine litter or trash, we'd expect to see something like that maybe fishing nets that have gotten caught up on the rocks, and have torn out and been left there. We'll ask about that next time. They're coming up into a shallower area and we should get into a better habitat.

Andrea: I'm in the chat room and we have a couple of questions.

Tom: Okay, great.

Andrea: David from I'm not sure of the high school name. Hueneme.

Tom: That's right here in Ventura county.

Andrea: I knew I was saying it wrong. He wants to know why they chose the Channel Islands for this type of research.

Tom: I'll answer that rather than Laura. We certainly welcome you, David to our program here. I know a few of the teachers there, one lives right next door to me, Laura. Glad you could join our program today. The reason NASA and the Channel Islands National Park are working together today is because we both, on a regular basis, explore new areas. National Parks are places where people can come to explore, and oftentimes you will be somewhere where no one has ever been before. We're doing some research work here and we thought it would be really neat for people to be able to join us on the Internet, to ask questions like you are right now. And to go exploring and go somewhere where no one has ever been before. And NASA and the National Park service have been trying to work together for a few months and this is our first project together so we're both very proud this is our inaugural project and things will get better. Fasten your seat belts, we'll be doing more. Hopefully we'll be at a lot of National Parks but we're starting here 900 feet deep in Channel Islands National Park.

Andrea: Dean from the same school.

Tom: What's the first name?

Andrea: Dean. Would like to know how are they breathing in the submarine.

Tom: We'll ask Laura that. Have you been able to hear her the last few transmissions?

Andrea: Yes.

Tom: We'll ask Laura and ask her to explain it to you. Dean, we'll let you talk to her. Laura, can you hear me? Okay, we have a question from one of our Internet visitors, his name is Dean, and he's from port HUENEME high school in Ventura county. He wanted to ask you, how are you breathing down there, how are you breathing?

Laura: That's a great question, Dean. We're just breathing regular air, we're adding oxygen and taking out the carbon dioxide that we breathe when we exhale. It gives -- the submarine is up to regular atmospheric pressure, I don't even have to clear my ears as we descended like I would have to do when I'm scuba diving.

Tom: Okay, thanks for that answer. Does that answer that for you, Dean, I hope so. Andrea, any others?

Laura: We're looking for some other creatures, we saw an octopus that's been following along the back here, and it's a beautiful octopus. When I turn the submarine lights on it camouflages itself. We've been having fun observing this octopus for the last few minutes.

Tom: So, Laura, is the octopus really camouflaged down there?

Laura: It's fairly well camouflages, when we shine our lights on it, it turns a little bit of a red color, we can see the white because of the lights of the sub. But down here normally light does not penetrate and you don't normally see red colors beyond 30, 40 feet of water. He would be very camouflaged to the predators down here, especially --

Tom: Okay. Laura, we're in the Park right now, and a little earlier you might have been outside more in the Sanctuary waters. I'd like to ask you to compare the diversity of the lifeforms you see down there at depth compared to what the kind of diversity we normally see in the shallower waters around Channel Islands National Park like in the kelp forest. Can you compare those lifeform diversities?

Laura: It's interesting to be down in the submersible and see the different forms of life the scuba divers go in the shallower waters down to about 100 feet, where we see beautiful kelp forests, and really see the different areas from the shallower waters. Down here, it's spread out. Life at this part of the Sanctuary in the Park is really sparse. You see a fish maybe every 100 feet or 200 feet. There's not light down here, the animals that live down here depend on feeding on each other or things that fall down from the surface. So there's not photosynthesis down here on the bottom like you have in the shallower waters down on the surface. There's a lot of -- things are real spread out. What I'm observing right now are sea anemones, sea urchins. As a scuba diver up at the shallower depths, this is interesting. It's much warmer in the submarine. I thought it would be very cold but it's actually quite comfortable.

Tom: That answers it good Laura. I was wondering, to get a picture of what it looks like down there, I have two questions: One is, is it dark or is it light. And are there plants all around, like in the Park waters in the kelp forests, are there a lot of plants or is it really barren?

Laura: It's very barren down here. Like I said, things are spread out, there are no plants down here. There are invertebrates down here, not like you'd find in the kelp forest. It's barren, more like a desert. It's also very mysterious, very different. This is the first time that we have explored this canyon behind Santa Cruz and we have seen this kind of Sanctuary in the Park. To me that's very, very exciting. The deep sea is a frontier that is difficult to explore and most of what we know about it comes from collecting animals from nets so we don't really, we aren't able to really capture a picture of what this area looks like unless we go down like this and really start to explore and see what's down here. That's what makes this dive so exciting for me, going to an area that's never been seen by humans before.

Tom: Okay, read you well. That's pretty neat. Andrea, you picking us up, everything going okay?

Andrea: Yes, everything is fine.

Tom: We have any more questions or are they being handled by -- let me ask her what her present depth is.

Andrea: Okay, that was a question.

Tom: Laura, what depth are you at right now.

Laura: Right now we are at 550 feet.

Tom: Okay, copy that. We are also wondering, Laura, do you see any signs of man being down there, like torn fishing nets or barrels or any kind of litter? Do you see anything like that down there?

Laura: You know, Tom, I was expecting to see some fishing gear, traps. I believe that's been observed on other drives but we have only seen a very clean bottom. We haven't seen any traps or fishing lines down here. But certainly that is something that could definitely be down here. There are a lot of rocks for nets to get hung up on, certainly when something gets caught down here it's probably never recovered because it's too deep for divers to go down and retrieve. I can imagine that that would be quite a problem down here. But so far so good, we haven't seen any signs of debris yet on this dive. I will keep you posted if we do. Over.

Tom: Okay, good, thank you. I have a couple of questions about the sub itself. How does it maneuver and can you pick things up? You don't reach out of it, do you have a robotic hand that you can pick things up with? Over.

Laura: There is a mechanical arm that is mounted on the outside of the sub and can collect things from the sea floor. We're not doing any collecting on this dive but certainly scientists that come down here do collect things to bring them up, if they discover new species, there are so many areas of the deep sea that haven't been explored. So they might bring up a specimen, for the future. Tom, we've got looks like -- going down to the bottom of the canyon. They can be hazardous to a sub. It has basket scars on it. This is a type of invertebrate and they colonize. I almost didn't recognize it.

Tom: Does the sub make a lot of noise or is it quiet down there, does it turn tight turns, and can you get close to the rocks in those real steep rock walls?

Laura: Tom, the sub is extremely quiet, it has an electric motor and it's very, very maneuverable. We can get right up next to a rock wall, close enough to get-- we can get within several inches of a rock, of the wall. And we can gently maneuver ourselves to the bottom and backup. I'm very amazed and impressed at how maneuverable this sub is. It's great.

Tom: Copy that, very good. So you're about 500 feet right now, is that correct, are you getting more light, or is it still dark? And if it is dark, can you, you have lights outside the sub don't you, can you turn those out? I'm wondering if you can see little glowing creatures and stuff like that.

Laura: Roger that, Tom. If we turn the lights on, it is pretty dark down here. I can just barely make out the edge of the wall, and I think-- the lights definitely help us see what is down here. I'm looking out my porthole right now, there are living animals that produce light, there's bacteria that produce slight, these animal can be luminescent. There are a lot of theories as to why the animals produce light down in the dark ocean. Some feel it's maybe to recognize each other, a pattern of light, to recognize the same species. There are some animals that use light to attract prey and they use it to attract the prey in and gobble it up. I have not seep any yet, we're probably not deep enough to see it and we probably would see a lot more if this were a light dive.

Tom: Good copy. Stand by for a minute, Laura.

Andrea: This is Andrea. Some of the Internet users are still getting her very garbled. You may want to ask her to get in a better position.

Tom: Okay. Andrea do we have any other questions from the chat room?

Andrea: Well, I'm trying to monitor them. You're kind have covering them generally as we go.

Tom: Okay, that's good, we have some marine biologists can you at the chat room at Channel Island National Park in Ventura, probably maybe some of those are getting answered also, hopefully that is working. We'll see how it goes. I will see if we can move along and find a better place. She's coming in quite clear here, maybe I can alter our linkage a little bit now. Laura, what is your depth right now?

Laura: Tom, the depth is 475 feet.

Tom: Okay. 475, that's good. Are there any rock overhangs for anything that might make interference? We hear you pretty good, we have some Internet users that are having a little trouble hearing you. We'd like to keep working on that as you ascend. Speaking of ascending, how does the sub come up and I have another question, since you're in the sub is it still safe, what kind of safety features are there, and are you pretty comfortable in there?

Laura: Roger that, Tom. We use high pressured air to force water out of the ballast. You ask if I feel safe in here, I feel very safe as long as crisis driving. I have to say it makes me a little bit nervous when I first got in the sub and Chris told me, okay, this is what you have to do to surface and he explained the procedure for letting air, forcing the water out of the tanks. I did I do feel very comfortable as long as crisis in charge. I'm lying on my stomach, getting a wonderful view of the rock walls. We just came into an area where there are, I don't know, maybe 40 or 50 octopus all staring at us, looking a little startled at our light. We must look very, very strange to all of the animals here, like a UFO, this huge thing with lights on it moving through the water. They're not sure what to make of us. Over.

Tom: Yes, I believe that. Well, that's good you feel safe there. It's good if Chris doesn't wander off to the kitchen. Is there a kitchen onboard?

Laura: Come again, over.

Tom: I was saying that it's good Chris stays seated there so that he can get you back safely. That's going to be real good. That sounds real neat. And crisis like right above you in that little turret, like a chimney with the porthole s sticking out of you. He's above you and you're laying down lacking out of the porthole s, is that correct?

Laura: Yes, that's correct. I'm lay lying on my stomach, up on my elbows, propped up on my elbows. My feet go back underneath Chris' chair and he sits above me and his head sticks up higher than mine does. And I have, boy it looks like, about 11 small port holes that are maybe about 6 inches in diameter that I can lookout of. So I can look out of the sub at the bottom, the top or the sides depending on where the subjects of interest are. So it really provides a great viewing opportunity and it's very comfortable. It's actually starting to get a little bit cooler here, and Chris, what's the water temperature? The water temperature right now is 10 degrees sell see us. -- cell see us. CELSIUS, 10 degrees. That's very cold diving conditions and probably the longer you stay down at, the temperature here gets to, the ambient temperature of the water outside. We're at 350 feet now and it's just starting to get a little bit lighter. Over.

Tom: Okay, copy you real good. Now you have as you're looking for White Abalone and as you're talking with us, you have camera equipment that is connected to the sub, is that right, so that you can take pictures, is that correct?

Laura: That is correct, Tom. We are constantly ready throughout the dive. It's permanently mounted on the outside of the sub. And it's also got two lasers. What's neat about that, issue can see them as you move along the rock wall. The lasers are 20 centimeters apart. It gives you an idea of how large the animals are that we're seeing down here. Otherwise it would be very difficult to determine how big they are. It's also to judge distance. Those lasers are extremely helpful for determining size. They stay on the video, so that you can see them as you're reviewing the video at the end of the dive. Also we have a still camera onboard that has a lens mounted outside of the sub, you can take still pictures as we're cruising along here as well.

Tom?

Tom: Okay, we copy you good. If you could stand by for a minute, Laura, take a little rest and we'll get back to you in a minute. Yes, Andrea.

Andrea: Just wanting to know if you could give a review, sort of, of that last question, it started breaking up towards the middle of it.

Tom: I was asking her, I wanted her to describe as she's looking for White Abalone and doing her research down there, if there is some way for her to record it. And she was saying that the "Delta" sub is equipped with a video camera that is constantly running the whole time. From the time she leaves here to the time she comes back, the video camera is rolling the whole time off the starboard, right side, of the starboard of the sub. Looking at the rocky areas as they look for the White Abalone. There's also bright lights, of course, running all the time with the video camera, but there's also strobe lights, extra higher power lights that go off, when she takes pictures with her still camera from inside the sub. You can take pictures through the porthole and there is a wire that comes through for her to plug into her camera. When she takes the picture, the light will flash, like a strobe light, under water right at the right time she's taking the picture. There's no problem with recording it. That allows her to be able to talk to us and feel a little freer, because she's not only looking but it's all being recorded. Up here in the wheel house, the sub operators and support crew that they have, I'm surrounded by a desk full of computer equipment and sonar and all kinds of details about the "Delta" sub, so they're keeping track of it really well every minute they know where it is. So when the sub does come up, they actually have a map of its whole track lieu longitude and latitude with regular piloting skills with the different kinds of equipment that they have onboard. It's really quite technical, and it's great to talk to here in this audio conversation, it's very simple and a fun thing to do. That kind of covers that question. Any other questions there, Andrea?

Andrea: We have a question from Steven, a home schooler, and he wants to know if there has been any experimentation with infra rays to not disturb the wildlife.

Tom: That's pretty interesting. Where is he from?

Andrea: He identifies himself as a home schooler.

Tom: Okay, Steven. Can you repeat the question one more time?

Andrea: If there has been any experimentation with using infrarays to not disturb the marine life.

Tom: We have our marine biologist with us. Has there been any experimentation with infra reds in not disturbing the wildlife?

Steven: Is the question are the lasers bothering the wildlife? Is that the question?

Andrea: Yes, I think the process of observing them using light.

Steven: Well, the lights do disturb the wildlife, and so they're not down there very often. The laser lights that we're using as a range finder to measure the sizes of the fish are two little pinpoints of life, bright red pinpoints of light. Actually the fish chase them. They come into their territories and look at them, and then they'll rush at them and find there's nothing there as the light moves on. It's fun to watch the reaction of the wildlife to the light. But we're only passing through for a few minutes in their lifetime. Does that answer our question?

Andrea: That does. Thank you.

Tom: Okay, thanks for that, Steven. Any other questions right there?

Andrea: I have a question from Connie, from, she uses ACCC, and she wants to know what type of degree does one have to do to drive a sub?

Tom: That's a good question. I don't think you need to have a college degree to drive a sub but you probably need to be licensed, probably underwater operator, is that correct? Do we know that? They probably go through a special licensing, like the ship we're on, they have a license that is equal to the size and the tonnage of the ship. I'm sure that it is such a specified skill to have that I'm sure there is some sort of licensing they go through. Maybe Connie wants to be a sub driver. I think that maybe I might want to. We're going to do some more drives today and I will get my chance soon, so I'll know the answer to that question. Thanks for that question. There are a lot of jobs in marine biology, I can't say whether they're open all the time, but a lot of people are working in them, working with grants for research, they're working with the National Park service, national marine fisheries, the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, like Laura, our diver we're talking to. If it's something you're interested in, we certainly do recommend that you pursue it. And follow your heart and do what you want to do. If that answers your question, Connie, I hope so. Anything else there before we get back to Laura?

Andrea: No, I'm looking at the clock and thinking we probably want to give her a chance to give us some last comments.

Tom: Okay, let's see where she is. Laura, we have about five minutes left. Why don't you tell us where you are, depth-wise. We just answered a few questions, and you can tell us where you are, depth- wise and maybe what it's like as you ascend, and we just had one last question, maybe you could shed some more light on it, from one of our visitors named Connie, she was talking about the sub operators, if there is a special license they have. I think there are probably a lot of people that might be interested in careers as marine biologists and the kind of things that you do. Maybe you could say something about that in the next five minutes, wrap it up as you ascend. Laura, this is Tom, are you still with us?

Laura: Tom, I copy that. Sorry for the delay there. I'll tell you a little bit about what we see here as we ascend, we started to see a few different things as it got shallower here. We are now at 275 feet. I've seen some bright orange fins, pretty coral down here, and I've seen some skullpin and things I recognized from scuba diving, they're found in the shallower waters and it's interesting to see a familiar fish down here. Most of the fish I've seen tend to be more deeper water fish but I would see from scuba diving. And the question from I think you said Connie, is that -- I think you said Connie, is that right, Tom?

Tom: Yes, Connie.

Laura: Answering your question, Connie, I was talking to Chris about submarine pilot training and there are marine technology programs. I know that Santa Barbara City College has a program and they do some training for that type of profession. Chris said that it takes a lot of practice driving a sub this is around, many years of learning how to do it and how to maneuver the sub throughout canyons, all the places. I have an undergraduate degree in biology, then a masters of biology at UC Santa Barbara. That's what my training was. As we're getting shallower, I'm seeing other animals that I recognize from scuba diving. There some rock fish outside the window, looks like black rock fish, red rock fish. And sheep heads, I saw one hovering inside the cavern. We typically see those scuba diving in the kelp forest and I didn't know they came down this deep.

Tom: Stand by one minute, Laura. Andrea, are you there? Andrea, are you receiving us? Hopefully you are.

Andrea: Yes, I'm here.

Tom: We are ending our time with transcription, I'm sure, is that correct?

Andrea: Yes.

Tom: We don't want to start another unit of that. She's just coming up into an area she's recognizing animals that we see that we would be familiar with as scuba divers around California coastline and around the Channel Islands National Park from the surface, all the way down to about200-plus feet. She's starting to recognize these, probably in a good deal of light. Let's find out if she is.

Tom: Laura, where you are, is it pretty light now, do you have a lot of sunlight?

Laura: Oh, definitely. 250 feet, and Chris has just turned the sub lights out and it looks like -- sub lights out. I can see fairly well, it's much, much clearer than it was down at 600 and 800 feet. And I can probably identify some animals. The color at this depth is very green. Without the sub lights everything looks greenish or greenish blue down here. You don't see any color. Right now, it looks like we've gotten up on to a shelf, it's very flat, and we're just cruising over the sandy bottom. It looks like there might be, I thought it was a type of ray up ahead, it turns out it's just a blade of kelp. We're turning the lights back on so I can see better. There is a type of kelp called milk kelp that has large blades, and it almost looks like a ray from a distance.

Tom: Okay, Laura, as you ascend we have a couple minutes left if you'd like to give some closing remarks before we sum it up. And get moving.

Laura: Well, Tom, I just wanted to express my enthusiasm for being down, exploring this new part of the Channel Islands Sanctuary, with the Santa Cruz area, off the side of Santa Cruz Island in Southern California. It is a tremendous experience to be able to see all of the different lifeforms that I've seen down here, the animals, be able to really get a close look at them and be here without getting wet. It's also been great to be able to talk about these things with NASA and others about the technology. I think that's wonderful and I think that maybe next time we do this we can also get some video of our dive and combine those. But it's been a fantastic experience. Over.

Tom: Okay, thanks for that. Laura and Chris, thanks for taking us around and getting back safely, in advance. We'll talk to you when you reach the surface.

Tom, thank you.

Laura: Okay, "Delta" sub out. Over.