SEALAB SEALAB I , II , and III were experimental underwater habitat s developed by the United States Navy in the 1960s to prove the viability of saturation diving and humans living in isolation for extended periods of time . The knowledge gained from the SEALAB expeditions helped advance the science of deep sea diving and rescue , and contributed to the understanding of the psychological and physiological strains humans can endure . SEALAB I . SEALAB I was lowered off the coast of Bermuda in 1964 to a depth of 58 m ( 192 feet of seawater ( fsw ) ) below the sea ' s surface . It was constructed from two converted floats and held in place with axles from railroad car s . The experiment involved four divers ( LCDR Robert Thompson , MC ; Gunners Mate First Class Lester Anderson , Chief Quartermaster Robert A . Barth , and Chief Hospital Corpsman Sanders Manning ) , who were to stay submerged for three weeks . The experiment was halted after 11 days due to an approaching tropical storm . Before the SEALAB habitat could be emplaced , a number of rifle grenade s had to be found and removed from the bottom around Argus Island . The grenade s had been fired up into the air with the object of targeting their explosions when they returned to the water . With enough impacts the position of Argus Island could be determined to within a few feet . Unfortunately , many grenades did not fire upon impact with the sea surface and divers had to search them out and remove them . This was a job for divers from the Navy SOFAR Station ( Columbia University Geophysical Field Station ) , and both U . S . Navy and Air Force civilians and enlisted SCUBA divers . A platform which had been built to lower the Remote Underwater Manipulator ( RUM ) from a garage on Argus Island to the sea floor was also removed . SEALAB I was then placed on the nearly flat bottom on a layer of algal balls and some corals . SEALAB I was commanded by Captain George F . Bond , also called " Poppa Topside " , who was key in developing theories about saturation diving . SEALAB I proved that saturation diving in the open ocean was viable for extended periods . The experiment also offered information about habitat placement , habitat umbilicals , humidity , and helium speech descrambling . SEALAB I is on display at the Museum of Man in the Sea , in Panama City Beach , Florida , near where it was initially tested offshore before being deployed . It is on outdoor display . Its metal hull is largely intact , though the paint is faded to a brick red . SEALAB II . SEALAB II was launched in 1965 , and unlike SEALAB I , it included hot showers and refrigeration . It was placed in the La Jolla Canyon off the coast of California , at a depth of 62 m . On August 28 , 1965 , the first of three teams of divers moved into what became known as the " Tilton Hilton " ( Tiltin ' Hilton , because of the slope of the landing site ) . Each team spent 15 days in the habitat , but aquanaut / astronaut Scott Carpenter remained below for a record 30 days . In addition to physiological testing ( described in the book by Radloff & Helmreich ) , the divers tested new tools , methods of salvage , and an electrically heated drysuit . They were aided by a bottlenose dolphin named Tuffy from the U . S . Navy Marine Mammal Program . Aquanauts and Navy trainers attempted , with mixed results , to teach Tuffy to ferry supplies from the surface to SEALAB or from one diver to another , and to come to the rescue of an aquanaut in distress . There were plans for Tuffy also to take part in SEALAB III . A sidenote from SEALAB II was a congratulatory telephone call that was arranged for Carpenter and President Lyndon B . Johnson . Carpenter was calling from a decompression chamber with helium gas replacing nitrogen , so Carpenter sounded unintelligible to operators . The tape of the call circulated for years among Navy divers before it was aired on NPR in 1999 . SEALAB III . Four years later , SEALAB III used a refurbished SEALAB II habitat , but was placed in water three times as deep . Five teams of nine divers were scheduled to spend 12 days each in the habitat , testing new salvage techniques and conducting oceanographic and fishery studies . Preparations for such a deep dive were extensive . In addition to many biomedical studies , work - up dives were conducted at the U . S . Navy Experimental Diving Unit at the Washington D . C . Navy Yard . These “ dives ” were not done in the open sea , but in a special hyperbaric chamber that could recreate the pressures at depths as great as 1 , 025 fsw ( 312 m ) . According to John Piña Craven , the U . S . Navy ' s head of the Deep Submergence Systems Project of which SEALAB was a part , SEALAB III " was plagued with strange failures at the very start of operations " . On February 15 , 1969 , SEALAB III was lowered to 610 fsw ( 185 m ) , off San Clemente Island , California . The habitat soon began to leak and four divers were sent to repair it , but they were unsuccessful . During the second attempt , aquanaut Berry L . Cannon died . It was found that his rebreather was missing baralyme , the chemical necessary to remove carbon dioxide . Surgeon commander John Rawlins , a Royal Navy medical officer assigned to the project , also suggested that hypothermia during the dive was a contributing factor to the problem not being recognized by the diver . According to Craven , while the other divers were undergoing the week - long decompression , repeated attempts were made to sabotage their air supply by someone aboard the command barge . Eventually , a guard was posted on the decompression chamber and the men were recovered safely . A potentially unstable suspect was identified by the staff psychiatrist but the culprit was never prosecuted . Craven suggests this may have been done to spare the Navy bad press so soon after the USS " Pueblo " incident . The SEALAB program came to a halt , and although the habitat was retrieved , it was eventually scrapped . Aspects of the research continued in classified military programs , but no new habitats were built . NCEL of Port Hueneme , CA ( now a part of NFESC ) , was responsible for the handling of several contracts involving life support systems used on SEALAB III . The SEALAB II / III habitat is located off the Scripps pier in La Jolla , California . In 2002 , a group of researchers from the High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network boarded the and utilized a Scorpio ROV to find the site of the SEALAB habitat . This expedition was the first return to the site since the habitat was moved .