Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Cheese, subs and fresh air

BBC News - USS Nautilus: A record-breaking sub

I like the quirkiness of some of the anecdotes here from a guy who was on the first crew of the first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus.  For example:
"I hated cottage cheese, but one time we stayed submerged for a long
time and when the ship surfaced I began to crave cottage cheese. I think
breathing the recycled air changed my metabolism."

When they surfaced and began to pump fresh air back into the Nautilus "it was so clean and so sweet it made you light-headed"...

"For every 100 feet in depth, there's 44 pounds of pressure per square
inch of the vessel. So when we went deep in the ocean, the hull would
compress and the locker doors would pop open."...

"The US Navy sent psychologists on board the Nautilus because they
were concerned about the effects on the personalities and mental health
of the men who would be confined in such a small amount of space for
long periods."
They found no impact, he says, but some submariners would talk gibberish and pretend to be crazy.

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