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Byford dolphin6/20/2023 Instead, in saturation diving the divers spend their entire working shift under pressure, spending their off-hours in a diving chamber pressurized to their working depth and travelling to and from the job site in a pressurized diving bell known as a transfer capsule. For example, a dive of more than an hour below 100 metres depth would require more than 50 hours of decompression. However, for long, deep dives like those required in the offshore oil industry, this technique becomes infeasible as divers would have to spend far more time decompressing than working during each shift. To avoid this, divers must ascend to the surface slowly, taking decompression stops at regular intervals to allow the Nitrogen to be slowly and safely expelled from their bodies. If they then ascend to the surface too quickly, the drop in pressure can cause this Nitrogen to come out of solution and form tiny bubbles, which can cause crippling joint pain, strokes, paralysis, and even death. As a diver breathes pressurized air at depth, Nitrogen gradually becomes dissolved in their body. Specifically, it is designed to overcome the danger of decompression sickness, better known as the Bends. ![]() Navy’s Sealab Program in the mid-1960s, saturation diving is a technique that allows humans to live and work at extreme depths for extended periods of time. Welcome to the strange twilight world of saturation diving, one of the most dangerous – and well-paid – jobs in the world.ĭeveloped as part of the U.S. Now imagine living like this for months at a time, unable to escape your little sealed world without facing a certain and gruesome death. Here you can eat a meal delivered through a tiny hatch or catch a few hours of sleep before your next shift begins and it’s time once again to plunge back into the abyss. All your off hours are spent in a tiny, cramped metal tube, breathing a mixture of gases that makes it hard for you to speak and constantly saps heat from your body, giving you a permanent chill. ![]() Imagine working 100 metres beneath the sea, a hostile place that sunlight never reaches and where temperatures can plunge to a few degrees above freezing.
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