Posts

Cool space tunes!

Check out “Wakeup Like An Astronaut” on my web page, featuring the hilarious satirical space shuttle wake up music Michael J. Cahill created for me after the Challenger accident.  Kathysullivanastronaut.com

Sea+Space: The Big Story

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A short piece contrasting my two grand adventures.

More from the Challenger Deep

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My time aboard Pressure Drop ended on June 16, but Team Caladan did another 10 days worth of sub dives and continued the scientific exploration of deep ocean trenches - using robotic landers - right up to today (more on that to come!). Here are some of the cool sights captured on the series 2 dives in the Challenger Deep. 

Serious Sous Vide!

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In a daring culinary science experiment the current expedition team is trying a 'Mariana marinade' on the dive carrying Kelly Walsh (son of Trieste pilot Don Walsh) down into the Western Pool. Chef Manfred has a  6lb beef sirloin in a bag of marinade, plus 2 lbs each of Cajun chicken and chicken satay, being taken down to full ocean depth. (Its riding in the same compartment as all the “please shrink” styrofoam. Cups). That should drive the marinade and spice into the meat!  #infusion #sharkbait

Success!

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June 7, 2020: Journey to the bottom of the Challenger Deep - and back. Longer posts describing this remarkable day will follow soon. Will add pix when we get back to 4G bandwidth.  Stay tuned!

GO for Dive Ops!

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We are over the eastern pool of the Challenger Deep and making final preparations for our first dive.  Victor has just gotten into the sub to power up and run through the pre-dive checklist. I board in about 30 minutes. We aim to be off the hook and pumping down at 8am local time. Fine seas (<1 meter wave + swell), winds about 15kts and yesterday’s squally weather breaking up. A great day for diving!

At Challenger Deep.

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We have arrived over the Challenger Deep. (You can see the depth - 10,352 meters or 33,963 feet - on the screen at left). Today is a day of mapping, with an autonomous lander deployment into the Western Pool.   The weather is looking good for our dives.  All is well.  Today’s fun task is organizing a comms link from the bottom of the Challenger Deep to the International Space Station during my dive tomorrow. Fingers crossed we can make it work!