Scott Carpenter's Guest Essay #1

How I Taught an Astronaut a Thing or Two
—And Received an Education

by Bob Barth

In early 1964 we gathered in Panama City, Florida, to build the U.S. Navy’s first underwater habitat. This subsea house was to be called Sealab I. This habitat trial was the final test of a then-new concept that is called saturation diving today; I’m not sure what we called it in 1964. Our boss was Dr. George Bond, a captain in the U.S. Navy medical corps.
One morning in his office we were discussing the many challenges looming on the horizon, when to our surprise he announced that NASA was sending one of its astronauts to work with us. Of course, I piped up and asked: “What are we going to do with one of them?” Dr. Bond looked me in the eye: “You are going to teach him how to be a Sealab diver.”
That’s how it all began.

The men of Sealab were a group of Navy divers facing a complex program. We were not too sure just how this spaceman was going to fit in. But he was a naval officer so we knew he had probably mastered the dogpaddle and even spoke a language we understood. So when he showed up, he dispensed firm handshakes all around, smiled, and said something like he was sure pleased to be down here with us. This naval aviator seemed to be a decent fella.

I was assigned the job of seeing that Scott Carpenter was able to handle himself in thewater. Although he was no expert with the tools of the diving trade, we had not expected him to be. The man was, in fact, trained to sit at the end of a rocket and fly the thing. With that kind of an education who would ever doubt that getting his head wet was going to be a problem?
A lot of the underwater training Scott was to receive would come from two of us in the program—Wilbur Eaton, another Sealab diver, and me. We took Carpenter out on boat trips. We took him to lakes and rivers and threw him into all kinds of water with every kind of diving apparatus we could find.

One day our training program consisted of Wilbur and me taking Scott to sea in a small boat to show him how to use a handheld sonar, a device that assists divers in finding objects underwater. By this point in his education, the astronaut had shown himself to be extremely eager to learn everything we divers did. Every time he saw us do something in the water, he’d say: “Show me how to do that.”

It was to be a great source of entertainment for Wilbur and me. Eaton got in the water and set up various objects on the bottom that Scott would soon learn how to identify. When Wilbur returned, it was my turn to get in. When I was ready, I asked Wilbur for a hand putting on my bottles. He said “Hell, no! Put ‘em on yourself.” And threw them into the water. Naturally, they immediately sank to the bottom, so I jumped in, swam down, grabbed the bottles, turned on the air, put the regulator in my mouth, and slipped the straps over my shoulder.

Scott had been watching from the surface as I demonstrated the use of the sonar. When I returned to the boat, it was Scott’s turn to dive. “I want to do what you just did,” he told me. So I asked him: “You want me to toss the bottles on in the water?” Yes, Carpenter said. He wanted us to teach him all the things we could do.

Wilbur and I looked at each other. Maybe we even grinned. I replied, “Well, sure, Commander.”
After Scott had donned his diving gear, it was time for me to throw his bottles into the water. He was eager to learn another interesting trick that divers do, but he didn’t see me twist the air valve as tight as I could—I mean hard in the off position. Then I tossed the bottles in the water and told him one last time what he should do. To the bottom he went, placed the regulator in his mouth, and reached for the air valve. For some reason he was unable to get it on to breathe. Wilbur and I observed our student closely: We saw one astronaut, underwater, and one set of bottles twisting and turning over and over. Do you think Carpenter would give up? Not a chance.

Wilbur and I hung on to each other in glee, watching this guy trying to get air and not getting any. We thought it was funny because . . . . Hell. It was funny. Finally, Carpenter ruined the fun and turned the air valve on just a second or two before Wilbur was going to go down and do it for him. So Scott got air and did a great job with the rest of the lesson, returned to the surface, and looked at us expectantly for a word or a gesture—some sign of praise. We gave him nothing. That was part of the training.

After this episode, Wilbur and I vainly searched for any topic, any task, that might make this astronaut holler uncle. But it didn’t work. We finally gave up. Carpenter proved to us he could handle everything we threw at him. I’ve never told him this, but we gave him chores we’d just dreamed up, thinking he’d succumb to our relentless training program. He never gave up and nothing was too hard. It ended up that Wilbur and I learned more from Scott that he ever got from us.

Wilbur has passed. But we agreed many a time before he died that what had promised to be a thankless task assigned by Dr. Bond turned into an association with a man who had an intense desire to get his head wet. As for me, these many years later, I can look back, pull up some good memories and some even greater stories, some of which are even true. But best of all is a hell of a fine friendship.