Today's re-planned activities include a 3-hour coral science dive starting around noon, an educational outreach session with elementary schools this afternoon, and a 1-hour habitat photo dive early this evening. Decompression begins tomorrow.

Some history that might be interesting:

The "Aquarius" habitat was built in Victoria, Texas in 1986 and was originally designed to operate at depths to 120 feet. The original deployment site was planned for the waters off Catalina Island, California. However, it was decided instead to locate Aquarius off Croix, USVI. There, "Aquarius" underwent 12 marine science missions before relocation to UNCW, refurbishment, and deployment in Key Largo, Florida starting in 1993. After a six month maintenance dry dock in 1996, the habitat has been operating continuously for 6 years. The NEEMO 4 mission is actually the fifth NASA mission, and the 68th mission (total) aboard the NOAA-owned habitat. "Aquarius" is the second most active habitat in the world. Hydrolab, also owned by NOAA, was the longest running underwater laboratory program, with 80 mission conducted in St. Croix and 100 before that in the Bahamas.

The NASA/NOAA cooperative effort in sea and space is not a new concept. NASA had worked previously with underwater habitats in 1970-1972, aboard "Tektite" in the USVI. Although there were no NASA astronauts involved in the program, NASA had many scientists and researchers studying long-term space habitation. Previous to this program, the only NASA involvement in saturation diving was astronaut Scott Carpenter's command of the Navy Sealab 2 habitat in 1965.