The podcast of my Scuba Radio interview is now online – good fun. I joined the program for a bit at about the 32-minute mark. . . And many thanks to host Greg the Divemaster for including my book among the items he recommended for anyone who wants to give the gift of scuba. For a slightly longer form interview – complete with an audio cameo by astronaut-turned-aquanaut Scott Carpenter – check out this program from a few months ago on Southern California Public Radio.
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SEALAB, science and diving
The Man-in-the-Sea Museum in Panama City Beach, Florida, has started up a new newsletter to boost its outreach efforts and signal a new chapter in museum operations. I was asked to contribute a piece about SEALAB, science and diving, which just came out in the November newsletter – fitting timing as the museum gears up to raise money to restore and properly display SEALAB I. The original habitat’s hull has been sitting for years in the museum parking lot and the hope is to turn it into a bona fide exhibit.
Brief habitat history lesson
As part of Gizmodo’s Mission Aquarius series, I wrote a brief history of undersea habitats, touching on some of the highlights of the past 50 years, since those heady days when divers first lived in the sea. Of course if you’ve read my book you already know all about this, but you might still enjoy this little refresher course.
More on the age of Aquarius
Same subject but a different kind of story from my Huffington Post piece about the situation at NOAA’s Aquarius Reef Base. This one is for the online edition of Pacific Standard magazine and contains some new information that puts the paltry budget for Aquarius in perspective.
Talking NASA on Gizmodo
I worked on a piece with Brian Lam about NASA’s use of the Aquarius Reef Base, where Lam is writing up a storm this week for Gizmodo. I also appear in the accompanying video, by One World One Ocean, which has some wonderful footage of astronauts doing their underwater training last month – and not for the last time, they hope.
Giant squid hunt
A tip came in that put me onto the trail of the giant squid – or at least onto the story of those who are doing the actual hunting for this elusive creature of the deep. I wrote it for Pacific Standard online. PS is a lively, thoughtful and relatively new print magazine, but of course has an online edition, too. Definitely worth a look.
Aquarius story in HuffPost
My piece for The Huffington Post about the possible closure of the Aquarius Reef Base and the effort to save it is now online – just in time for the start of the next mission, which Aquarius backers hope will not be the last.
‘Sea Base Alpha’ online
My story in Discover magazine, “Sea Base Alpha,” is now online, I see – at least the first few paragraphs. The full text (about 4,600 well-chosen words in all) is available to subscribers only, alas. But I saw the June issue was still on newsstands the other day, so it may not be too late to grab this issue in print, still one of my favorite formats. Or you could consider subscribing to a great magazine. So many choices. . .
‘Sea Base Alpha’
My feature story about the past, present and future of sub-aquatic bases, “Sea Base Alpha,” is in the June issue of Discover magazine, on newsstands now, though it’s not yet online. I think it will be fairly soon – but why wait when you can pick up a copy? Looks great on coffee tables, too.
Sub-aquatic tourism’s new wave
My new Huffington Post slide show highlights the variety of underwater resorts in the works, along with Jules’ Undersea Lodge, the only place you can already check in (as long as you know how to dive). The Lodge is also a genuine descendant of Sealab, whose originators you can meet in my previous HuffPo slide show.