page_title: NEEMO
section_title: NEEMO 1: October 21–27, 2001
hierarchical_section_title: NEEMO / Missions / NEEMO 1: October 21–27, 2001
caption_attribution_description: The crew of the NASA-NOAA NEEMO 1 undersea exploration mission, conducted at the Aquarius Reef Base off Key Largo, Florida in October 2001. Left to right: NASA astronaut/aquanauts Michael López-Alegría and Michael Gernhardt, Canadian Space Agency astronaut/aquanaut Dafydd Williams, and NASA program manager and NEEMO 1 commander Bill Todd.
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:
  Bill Todd, Commander
  Michael L. Gernhardt
  Michael López-Alegría
  Dafydd Williams, CSA
  NURC Support Crew:
  Mark Hulsbeck
  Ryan Snow
caption: The first NEEMO crew, L–R: in front, Mike López-Alegría and Bill Todd, in back, Mike Gernhardt and Dave Williams
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