Hawaii – Proteus

This photo essay-letter was created on board the Exploration Vessel Nautilus during the 2018 Lōihi Seamount Expedition, a joint project between Ocean Exploration Trust, NASA, NOAA, and a number of academic institutions. The mission used this underwater volcano off the coast of Hawai`i as an analog for future space exploration to distant ocean worlds. Click on photo captions to scroll through the images and read more detailed bios of these phenomenal women working in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math fields.

Dr. Zara Mirmalek and Mary Nichols on the social deck. Zara is an ethnographer studying communication, and work practices among scientists and engineers conducting science and exploration in the ocean (with remotely operated and autonomous robots) and in planetary analogs (for future human and robotic planetary exploration). Mary is a video engineer and professor emeritus at Middle Tennessee State University. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Martynas Graban is the first officer on the Nautilus where she has served for two years. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Basia Marcks is an ocean science intern on the Nautilus and a PhD candidate at University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography. Her research focuses on the interactions between biology, geology, and chemistry in past periods of climate change. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Proteus Executive Director and Lead Science Communication Fellow for the E/V Nautilus Jenny Woodman. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Dear 2nd Graders,

I really enjoyed speaking with your class this morning. It is always fun to tell people about the work we are doing on board the Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus, a 211-foot science vessel outfitted for exploring the ocean floor with robots and studying what is happening in our planet’s ocean.

After we ended our talk with you, one of your comments stuck with me. Your teacher asked me to speak about what girls do on our ship, adding that you all thought only boys could be engineers and that made me a little sad.

As a matter of fact, I couldn’t sleep for quite some time even though it was 4:30 in the morning here off the coast of Hawai`i. But, I woke up with a plan: I’d gather all the girls on our ship (there are a lot of us) and take a photo for you. I thought maybe if you saw how many girls are out here doing exciting work, you might start to see how many important things get done by both boys and girls.

But there was one really big problem…

Jess and Antonella prepare Hercules for his next dive to an underwater volcano off the coast of Hawai’i. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Jessica Sandoval is an Argus pilot on the Nautilus and a Ph.D. student at at the University of California, San Diego. She works on bio-inspired robotics and bio-materials. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Antonella Wilby is a Ph.D. student at the Contextual Robotics Institute at UC San Diego, where she builds robots to explore extreme environments, in particular, ocean environments. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Wendy Snyder repairing Argus’s frame. Wendy is a graduate student at University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography; she is working on low power inertial navigation systems for glider type underwater autonomous vehicles (AUVs).

All the girls working on the Nautilus are very, very busy. Eighteen members of the 31-person science team on the Nautilus are women. We serve in all roles — from engineering to communications, from the very highest leadership position down to our student interns. There is no place on the Nautilus where women do not work incredibly hard.

I went to the back deck of the ship where Wendy, Jess, and Antonella were busy repairing our robots, Hercules and Argus. Without these robots, (we also call them remotely operated vehicles or ROVs) we wouldn’t be able to travel to the ocean floor to learn about volcanoes, octopuses, sharks, and creatures no one has ever seen before. As ROV pilots, a big part of their job is maintaining and fixing the ROVs – Wendy, Jess, and Antonella are engineers, so they are really good at what they do!

I ducked around the corner and up the stairs, following Mary and Nicole, but it turned out they were busy too. A camera needed fixing, and as video engineers, they needed to tackle the job. Cameras are very important to the work happening on the Nautilus; they are like eyes on the robots and they help the pilots to safely move around; cameras also record all the amazing images from places humans can’t safely go. As a retired journalist and video engineer, Mary has lots of experience to help guide and train Nicole who just graduated from college.

Dr. Leigh Marsh is a deep sea ecologist who specializes in the acquisition, processing, and analysis of ROV and AUV imagery and remote sensing data for vulnerable ecosystems in the deep ocean. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

One sample from the ocean floor is divided up into many samples for scientists all over the country. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Repairing a camera housing — Nicole Gottschalk, video engineering intern, and Mary Nichols. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Leigh Marsh and Megan Lubertkin in the Nautilus lounge. Megan is a graduate student at University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Brianna Alanis is a graduate student at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Her work focuses on creating autonomous proxies for primary production measurements using dissolved oxygen. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Our science data team — Leigh and Megan were also quite busy. They spent part of the afternoon brainstorming how to manage the thousands of images and samples being gathered with each dive, and they met with expedition leaders to share their ideas about how to do even more with the limited space available for so many scientists on the ship.

Then, I went to the wet lab, but another member of the science data team, Brianna, was busy organizing the equipment the science team uses after Hercules collects those samples and brings them back to the ship; one of her jobs is to prepare those specimens for scientists all over the country to study back on dry land.

Dr. Elizabeth Trembath-Reichert is a member of the Nautilus’s science/data team. She is doing post-doctoral work at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where she studies the microorganisms that live in environments where sunlight (or products of sunlight) cannot be used for energy.

Samples from the ocean floor must be divided up, preserved, and prepared for delivery to many scientists around the country. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Vice President of Exploration and Science Operations and Expedition Lead Nicole Raineault and Sam Wishnak, digital media coordinator for Ocean Exploration Trust. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

As the Vice President of Exploration and Science Operations for the Trust, Dr. Nicole Raineault works with the Nautilus team’s extended network of scientists to organize and plan the science objectives of the cruises. As an Expedition Leader she facilitates seeing those plans through on board the vessel. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

I ran over to the social deck, just in time to see Elizabeth rushing off to her lab. She had to place a bottle of seawater in an incubator, which is like a small oven. She wanted to test how long it will take her to process the samples Hercules will bring up to the ship from the volcano.

I was sure I’d be able to wrangle Sam and Nicole, but as part of the leadership responsible for the success of this and future expeditions, they were busy coordinating the hundreds of items that need addressing each day.

First Officer Martyna Graban helps survey the ship’s hull. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Ariel and Mugdha work on telling the story of this Nautilus expedition. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Science Communication Fellow Mugdha Flores is a marine biologist and informal educator; she loves teaching students about the ocean and aim to inspire them to become stewards of our ocean. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Thais Drummond da Silva is the third officer on the ship who stands watch on the bridge and is in charge of keeping everyone safe. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Speaking of the people who help this ship run smoothly, Thais and Martyna are officers in charge of running the ship so all this amazing science can happen. Today, Martyna took a crew out on a small boat to inspect the hull, and Thais makes sure everyone on the ship is safe at all times.

My friends Ariel and Mugdha were also busy, shooting video to help tell the story of science, ocean exploration, and marvelous feats of engineering.

Even I had to stop and take a break from writing this letter to you; Amy and I were needed in the studio where you saw us this morning. We had to talk to a group of people gathered at a museum in San Francisco – we showed them pictures and answered their questions just as we answered yours.

Dr. Darlene Lim is the principle investigator for this NASA SUBSEA project; she’s based at the NASA Ames Research Center where she is actively involved in the development of operational concepts for human scientific exploration of our solar system. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Darlene Lim in the wetlab with Jeff Seewald. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Amy Smith and Jenny Woodman in the television studio speaking to a group gathered at a museum in San Francisco. Dr. Smith is an astrobiologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute; she studies where microbiology, astrobiology, and the origin of life meet. She seeks answers to whether life could exist on other worlds in our solar system and beyond. Image Credit: Sam Wishnak

Science Communication Fellow Ariel Waldman is the founder of Space Hack and serves as an adviser to NASA. Image Credit: Ariel Waldman

My last stop on this adventure was the lounge where Darlene was sitting at her laptop on a big leather sofa. As principle investigator for this project, her days are really long – she’s working even when she looks like she might be relaxing. When I found her, she was getting ready to go on NASA TV and talk about the work we are doing; two million people tuned in to watch her today!

I’m writing this letter because I’d hate to think that there are any young girls in your class who think it isn’t cool or possible for them to build robots or rockets, and I’d hate to think that there are boys who think they shouldn’t do the thing they dream about doing, whatever it may be.

Following science out to sea has taken me to some pretty extraordinary places. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

And, if you don’t want to be a scientist or engineer, but you love the sea creatures — if you dream about what it might be like explore the ocean, I have a secret for you: not everyone involved studying the ocean is a scientist or engineer. I’m a writer. My job is telling true stories about this work so people can better understand the world we live in. Folks like me — anthropologists, painters, teachers, filmmakers, chefs, and all sorts of people play a big part, making amazing things happen every day for organizations like the Nautilus!

Thanks for asking us such smart questions. I hope you will stay curious, have fun and keep exploring!

Jenny

Jenny Woodman, Proteus founder and executive director, is a science writer and educator living in the Pacific Northwest; she is a 2018 lead science communication fellow on board the Exploration Vessel Nautilus. In 2016, she wrote her masters thesis on women in STEAM and continues to explore this topic in her work. Follow her on Twitter @JennyWoodman.

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Europa Galileo — This image of Jupiter’s Europa moon was captured by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s; scientists are studying deep sea volcanoes on Earth in preparation for future exploration to places like Europa where they expect to find oceans and hydrothermal activity beneath the moon’s surface. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute

On August 21, a team of scientists, engineers, and students arrived in waves, loaded with personal gear and equipment for deep sea exploration off the coast of Hawaii. The mission, a joint project with NASA, NOAA, Ocean Exploration Trust and a number of academic institutions, is to explore the Lōihi Seamount with remotely operated vehicles, or robots.

Conditions at this underwater volcano are similar to what scientists believe exist on moons in the outer regions of our solar system. Experts from NASA’s Systematic Underwater Biogeochemical Science and Exploration Analog (SUBSEA) team think it is likely that oceans and hydrothermal activity exist beneath an icy crust on Saturn’s Enceladus and Jupiter’s Europa.

Robotic dives at Lōihi also offer the opportunity to practice and develop protocols for future missions. Someday, when we reach distant ocean worlds, it is unlikely that humans will be able to enter into these hostile environments; it is more likely that they will deploy robots and explore from the safety of their ship or some other location, much like ocean explorers do today.

In order to develop protocols to guide those future missions, NASA and their partners have gathered a science team at the Inner Space Center at Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography; this team will remotely oversee and direct operations on the Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus here in Hawaii. The work will serve as an analog for expeditions where astronauts will communicate across great distances. Experiencing delays and possible technical difficulties first-hand on Earth will enable NASA and their partners to be better prepared for the challenges of deep space exploration.

Back on board the Nautilus last Monday, there were hugs and laughs as those who had sailed on the ship reunited and newcomers were introduced. We were eager to get going, but Hurricane Lane had other plans. The storm intensified and the Coast Guard ordered all ships over a certain size out of the port of Honolulu. Nicole Raineault, vice president of exploration and science operations for the Ocean Exploration Trust shared the news that expedition leaders and the ship’s captain, Pavel Chubar, didn’t feel the science team would be safe on board the ship during the storm. The Nautilus was going to ride out the weather in safer waters north of Maui, but the seas would be rough nonetheless – it was not going to be a place for non-professional mariners.

On Wednesday August 22, we repacked our gear, secured science equipment on the ship, and offloaded in Honolulu. As stores and restaurants closed all over Waikiki where we were staying, it was surreal to see the images of an immense storm heading our way while tourists poured in and out of the shops. The island chain is no stranger to powerful storms, but the last major hurricane occurred in 1992; Hurricane Iniki caused $3.1 billion in damage.

Lane ISS — Hurricane Lane from the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA

Lane was expected to hit Hawaii on Friday or Saturday, so we stocked up on food and water in case the storm disrupted power and transportation. (Experts recommend your family’s disaster supplies include one gallon of water per person, per day as well as enough food, medicine, and creature comforts like activities for little ones to last at least two weeks. For more on how to prepare your family for disaster visit here and here.)

The slow-moving storm never made landfall on O’ahu, but caused catastrophic flooding to the Big Island, dumping over 50 inches of rain in just a few days.

On August 26, we were transported to the Nautilus via water taxi and immediately set off as teams worked to prepare equipment for operations on Monday morning. The seas weren’t quite as calm as most would like and many napped and stared at the horizon in an effort to quell uneasy stomachs. Most over the counter motion sickness medicines cause drowsiness (and mine was no exception — although the box was labeled “less-drowsy,” it would be more apt if it read “may cause light coma”).

The E/V Nautilus underway, heading towards the Kilauea lava flow. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

We’re now our way to the Kilauea lava flow, a slow-moving eruption that has caused extensive damage to the Big Island since early spring. Data from the previous Nautilus expedition, Mapping Pacific Seamounts, included signals that look like little bubbles, which they’d never seen before.

Chris German is a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and leader of the science data team for this expedition. “It is a process we’ve not had the chance to study previously,” German added as he explained that they are returning to the same spot in order to see if those mysterious bubbles are still present.

He and his team are eager to determine an ideal location future dives. The Nautilus team uses sonar mapping technology to both enhance our understanding of the processes occurring on the ocean floor and to accurately identify where to deploy the robots for exploration. “This may be another kind of hydrothermal system nobody’s ever seen before,” German added with a grin.

We expect to be able to see the flow area from a distance after breakfast Monday morning, and we’re looking forward to launching our first dive operation on the Lōihi Seamount at midnight (HTC) Tuesday morning. Whenever the robots are deployed, the video feed is live-streamed to viewers all over the world at www.nautiluslive.org.

This piece was updated on August 27.

Discovering Ocean Worlds by Jenny Woodman
Ocean Worlds by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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