page_title: NEEMO
section_title: NEEMO 4: September 23–27, 2002
hierarchical_section_title: NEEMO / Missions / NEEMO 4: September 23–27, 2002
caption_attribution_description: NEEMO 5 crew members are pictured in the bunkroom aboard the Aquarius research habitat. They are (top, left to right) astronaut Garrett E. Reisman and NASA scientist Emma Hwang; (middle) astronaut Peggy A. Whitson, commander; and Clayton C. Anderson; and (bottom) habitat technicians James Talacek and Ryan Snow, employees of the National Undersea Research Center (NURC).
context_page_description: NEEMO, an acronym for NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations, is a NASA analog mission that sends groups of astronauts, engineers and scientists to live in Aquarius underwater laboratory, the world's only undersea research station, for up to three weeks at a time in preparation for future space exploration.
  Aquarius is an underwater habitat 3.5 miles off Key Largo, Florida, in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. It is deployed on the ocean floor next to deep coral reefs 62 feet below the surface.
  NASA has used it since 2001 for a series of space exploration simulation missions, usually lasting 7 to 14 days, with space research mainly conducted by international astronauts. The mission had cost about 500 million U.S. dollars. The crew members are called aquanauts, and they perform EVAs in the underwater environment. A technique known as saturation diving allows the aquanauts to live and work underwater for days or weeks at a time. After twenty four hours underwater at any depth, the human body becomes saturated with dissolved gas. With saturation diving, divers can accurately predict exactly how much time they need to decompress before returning to the surface.
context_section_description: NASA Aquanaut Crew:
  Scott Kelly, Commander
  Paul Hill
  Rex Walheim
  Jessica Meir
  NURC Support Crew:
  James Talacek
  Ryan Snow
caption: NEEMO 5 crew members are pictured in the bunkroom aboard the Aquarius research habitat. Top, L–R: Reisman, Hwang; Middle: Whitson, Anderson; Bottom: Talacek, Snow.
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