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But, as I have given it much thought, I realized that such thinking is really only wasted sentimentality. Discovery is not a breathing sentient entity – but it is after all just like my boyhood tree house back in Oklahoma – she is the embodiment of an idea fleshed out by the hands of men. My tree house is long gone, but I still hold the secrets we shared together in my heart. I think about it often and what it whispered to me all those years ago. And the idea that framed Discovery’s form is just as wonderful!

Discovery represents... well... discovery! She is designed the from of a notion that mankind has this innate, built in need to discover all that is beyond him. It is a genetic imperative that we seek and explore and discover that which is out of our reach. Historically speaking it drove us out of caves and into straw huts and then into steel skyscrapers and finally into structures orbiting our planet and under the sea. Discovery is an idea that will not end with her mission. Discovery is right now being reborn in the facilities of the League of the New Worlds and her latest incarnation is called the New Worlds Explorer and Leviathan. There are others as well. One is called Spaceship Two and another Dragon.

We are but tiny creatures in the larger scheme of things. But we are tiny creatures with a long reach indeed. I just watched images beamed back from Mars just yesterday, and another set of pictures from Saturn and Titan and a comet. Discovery is about to rack up another 720,000 miles on her odometer during this day alone and before she returns home - 8 million more.

Discovery represents a dream. But more than that, she represents our future – she is the beautiful and powerful embodiment of an idea that has been responsible for humanity’s great journey and will be responsible for all the rest to come. I am so honored to have been a part of her dream of having spent so much time inside her and of having been called to live out yet another taking shape each and every day before my eyes. We may weep and cry over what politicians and lawyers are doing or not doing – but on this very day, my fellow humans are ignoring them and planning and building for yet another day of exploration.

On such a day, it would dishonor Discovery to be sad, when there is so much discovery just ahead.

Dennis Chamberland

As I stared through that door, there were so many memories that flooded back to me. On that morning just a year before, I sat at home with my daughter Katy, watching the Challenger’s fateful final mission unfold on CNN. My daughter was one year and five days old on that unusually bitterly cold morning. I had watched the NASA Astronauts in that same white room where I now stood entering the Challenger spaceship: Commander Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, Pilot Michael J. Smith, Mission specialists Ronald E. McNair, Ellison S. Onizuka and Judith A. Resnik, Payload specialists Gregory B. Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe, who was to have been the first teacher in space and was chosen from more than 11,000 applicants.

I watched as they closed the hatch, as the room was swung away from the ship. I watched the countdown and the liftoff and the whole unthinkable nightmare that ensued. As I held my sleeping daughter tightly in my arms, I saw the ugly cloud engulf the Challenger, the sinuous hydra of the rockets breaking free and snaking around one another in the dark blue sky. And all of that was followed by the sickening telescopic camera playing about the blue sky flecked with white clouds. I cannot forget the cameras following the secret command embedded inside each of our brains searching the distant sky for the sign of the great ship that must somehow come out of those clouds and return safely to base. It was just not possible that they would not return home. It was NASA who built it, NASA who launched it – the very best and the very brightest cadre of men and women on the planet to whom failure was not an option. But then the long lenses on the cameras began to show the ocean surface miles offshore and there the splashes began to hit the frothing water. One after another – huge splashes. It was getting ready to skink in – the unthinkable...

And then the image of Christa McAuliffe’s mother sitting in the bleachers replaced the pictures from the distant ocean impact zone. I will never forget the image of her face. The anguish on her face told the story – the entire story – all of it. What we had all just witnessed together was just not possible. It could not happen. Not here. Not at this place. Not at this time. Not with this special crew. And yet, it did. And as I saw her face and held my own daughter in my arms, I wept deeply and bitterly. I wept for all the trauma of that horrible disaster I had just witnessed live before my eyes. I wept for Christa and her mom, and the rest of crew and all their families. I wept for America and for the dream.

A year later, as I stood there in that white room, I remembered all that and my eyes clouded with tears again. For as I stared at that door at the end of that tiny white room, I knew that this was a sacred place, a hallowed place. And that at the end, the last explorers who crossed that barrier would never come home again.

Today, now a quarter of a century later, nearly 700 men and women have walked across that threshold and stepped out into the black unknown. Ultimately, seven more did not return. That doorway with its yellow asterisk barrier is an image that has been permanently burned in my memory. For that doorway represents everything to me – it is the doorway into human exploration and one does not cross its barrier lightly. Because it does not matter how prepared one is, or how much training one has or how much one trusts the system or how thoroughly one knows and understands the probabilities – there is always the carless moment, or the second of inattention or the sheer blind hand of fate in a complex system supervised by ten thousand eyes. The bright yellow asterisk is the reminder that whomever it is that crosses the threshold and steps into the unknown is an explorer who fully understands that there is always a chance that they will not come home again. Stepping through that doorway is an honor and it is a privilege reserved for only a few but it comes with a heavy price. It always has and it always will. In the end, it is the perfect fool who steps outward who does not understand this price and who is not willing to pay that for which the check could come due at the most unexpected moment.

And so today, I honor my fellow explorers – the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger’s final mission and as well the memory of all those who have not returned from each of their missions. And today I also honor the deepest expectation of them and all the others who have not returned home again. That it is the most important duty of those who have been called to explore, not to shrink back but in fact, as we remember those who have paid the final price for the ultimate human endeavor, to honor them with our redoubled efforts to push ever outward and beyond. We must continue to push ever forward, to step around the bright yellow asterisk into those secret, dark and forbidding places that once conquered will be the cradles homes for the new generation of humans and the launch pad for their generation of dreams and dreamers.

It was not an uncommon site to see Claudia sitting in the moonpool tutoring a math problem or giving specific homeschooling instructions. On another occasion, one of the children’s SCUBA instructor sat our son Brett down on the front of the habitat and gave him his final underwater exam – just two feet from where we sat in comfort observing him, having a snack and watching the entire event. It may be the first time parents have enjoyed such a close up and comfortable view of their child being certified as an open water diver – while being in the same element with them!

On their frequent visits to the habitat, their mother Claudia would greet the children at the moonpool and then visit with them. At the end of their visit, she invariably would kiss their salty foreheads goodbye and bid them off with an undersea mom’s loving send off: “Exhale, exhale, exhale…” It’s meaning was unique among mothers on earth. Its meaning was, “Do not hold your breath while returning to the surface, it is dangerous.” While other mothers are warning their children to look both ways before crossing the street, our children’s mother invoked a similar warning, but altogether unique to families who live undersea.

Around our habitat lives a rather hostile looking four foot barracuda. While Fred (the name he was given by the local divers) never seemed to threaten or bite anyone, he was still a rather intimidating stray fish with sporting an absolutely evil looking row of razor sharp teeth. On several occasions Fred would orbit around the habitat and curiously peek inside at us. When they children were around, I would warn them by a hand sigh out the window – with the fingers of both hands together mimicking Fred’s teeth. It at least warned them to look out for Fred, although the worst damage he probably would have induced is causing someone to hurt themselves by trying to get out of his way. But hand signals out the windows to the children were essential when the sound of the voice was strictly confined to the walls of the habitat. Of course there were many other hand signals from ‘shark’ to ‘go back to the surface’ to ‘come inside’ to ‘watch your air pressure’ and ‘you’re getting cold – come inside’.

Families living under the sea will soon become a reality again. While our family may have been the first that we are aware of, and only for a painfully short period of time in 1997 and 1998 - others are sure to follow. And of the Atlantica Expeditions gets its way it will be very soon indeed. But this time, the expedition is never scheduled to end and the trips to the surface will be far less than the trips around the magnificent, crystal void of humankind’s new permanent dwelling place: Atlantica.

I took my first night dive in the ocean off Honolulu an hour after I saw JAWS for the first time in 1976. I was a younger man then and impulsive and was definitely looking around for the great beasts. But this weekend, diving alongside a man who was seriously attacked, it was a wholly different story. I am not as young as I was and not so much impulsive. The dive in broad daylight was far more intense than the night dive off Waikiki beach. I have been diving in this very spot for hundreds of hours and knew that this was definitely NOT a haven for sharks, but having just heard his story I was definitely looking around.

I know the statistics for shark attacks is lower than being struck by lightning – UNLESS – you live in Florida, that is. And nearly all shark attacks occur in water you can stand up in and most bites are relatively minor leg and ankle bites (ie – surfing injuries). But I also remember the photo that some of my environmental management colleagues took from the air off launch pad 39A. There were countless sharks in the photograph – about one shark every 50 feet or so.

Not all sharks are killers and man-eaters. But all sharks have to eat. They are not known for their intelligence and probably have no idea what a man is, much less swim around and dream up plots against him. But when man encounters shark – it is entirely up to the shark to do whatever he – or they – are going to do.

The shark has very sensitive sensors on its nose. It can detect activity in the water long before it sees its prey and far in advance of the prey seeing the shark. The good news is that sharks apparently do not like the taste of humans. That is why my friend was not killed.

Swimming off the Honolulu Boat Harbor about half a mile out, the shark just ‘tasted’ him and left. In a single instant, the shark clung to his abdomen with its rear teeth. Held him with the back teeth and then took two severing bites with its top teeth in less than half a second. He felt no pain. He thought he had collided with a log. He stood upright in the water and reached his hand out for the ‘log’ and felt the nose of a huge shark. It was at that moment that he saw the ocean around him was ‘purple’. The he felt the huge flap of skin that used to be on his back fold around his arm. The shark turned and left. But he was a half mile out in the ocean bleeding profusely with half his back hanging loose in the water. It was nothing less than a miracle that he survived, and one key part of the miracle is that he apparently didn’t taste very good to the great beast.

As we look forward to longer periods in the water, the site we have selected for the Atlantica I expeditions is also a breeding site for the Bull shark – one of the most aggressive sharks in the world. We will definitely seek more training on diving in those waters from shark experts and diving in and around the habitat will be done with special attention to the activities and behavior characteristics of the rather mean-spirited Bull shark.

Having said all that, we also recognize that our activities are in its waters where it has lived for countless millennia. We are the observers, not the conquerors. We are the scientists there to observe it in its element and we are most definitely not there to remove or injure a single shark. If anything, we wish to study them and count them and understand how the activities of man are encroaching on their habitat. In so doing, we hope to make life easier on them and thereby encourage them to achieve their ultimate balance in the aquatic realm where we have presumed to join them.

That region is no small place either - while we live crowded and struggling on a mere 59 million square miles of dry land, this new territory of certain promise spreads out before our very eyes and unfolds to encompass an astonishing 138 million cubic miles of habitable space! I am speaking of the oceans – whose human population is now and has always been - zero. And that is precisely what my beautiful machine hopes to solve.

I am very much looking forward to discussing all this in the upcoming Motherboard Television documentary on the Atlantica Expeditions and some of the Expedition Leader’s viewpoints. On November 20th – rain or shine – our undersea team will be conducting that interview on the seafloor in Key Largo, Florida, six fathoms down in the Jules Habitat. I am VERY much looking forward to that event! Anytime I can go back and spend any amount of time dry and warm under the sea is awesome. That is, after all, the only place I really consider as ‘home’ to me.

And speaking of ‘rain or shine’ it is interesting how perceptions of even the most basic and simple ideas change when you move into an alien environment. As I so often remind Claudia when walking or running through the rain – “I am an Aquanaut – so how can a little rain make any difference to me?” As a fine example of that thinking, my very good friend Chris Olstad (who holds the record for most logged time living underwater) was chasing his pet Iguana. It leapt out of his grasp and into a canal. Chris just laughed and leapt in after the animal, thinking, “Fine! You’re in my element now!”

If you are interested in all this, please feel free to check out my book UNDERSEA COLONIES at QuantumEditions.com where this and much more is discussed.

NASA has a true need to know where this is for the purposes of piloting the Space Shuttle – and their equations define the boundary layer at 62 miles and the shuttle’s performance is plenty good with this definition.

However, scientists at the University of Calgaryapplied instrumentation to this question by a rocket launch to this boundary, too high for balloons and too low for satellites. The space boundary instrument was carried by the JOULE-II rocket on Jan. 19, 2007. It traveled to an altitude of about 124 miles (200 kilometers) above sea level and collected data for the five minutes it was moving through the "edge of space."

According to this study, the precise boundary of space is exactly 73 miles above the surface of the earth.

This has a fairly important meaning. NASA defines an ‘astronaut’ as anyone traveling to an altitude of more than 50 vertical miles. For the most part nearly all NASA astronauts fly well above that – but there are some interesting exceptions.

For example: The X-Prize was awarded in 2004 to Scaled Composites as the first private flight into space. But, Spaceship One, according to telemetry, never actually made up what the Calgary definition now defines as 73 miles. Spaceship One only made it to 367,422 feet, nearly three and a half miles short of the boundary. They were significantly above the “astronaut’ definition of 50 miles and just above the space shuttle boundary – but just short of the new definition.

And – there are eight X-15 pilots who have earned “Astronaut Wings” who have flown above 50 miles but still short of 73.

It is, of course, so much trivia and much ado about literally nothing – but – in the future when many millions of dollars are on the line – the precise definition and bragging rights will eventually come into play. This scientist and engineer predicts that the boundary between 50 and 73 miles will be a true no-man’s-territory that no one will want to settle who desire to be called a 'real astronaut'. For after all - who will pay all those hundreds of thousands of dollars and still fly just short of the newly defined boundary? After all - the whole private spaceflight venture is all about and only about bragging rights, period.

PS. If I may be allowed an afterthought – Spaceship Two, is currently designed to carry fairly large numbers of people into that no-man’s-boundary with an advertised max altitude of 68 miles – an agonizing five miles short of the newly defined Calgary limit. I strongly suspect there is going to be an inevitable political argument over this finding!

In 1930, no one had ever descended below several hundred feet here, even though the average depth of the world’s oceans is over three miles deep. But William Beebe was a naturalist working for the New York Zoological Society. He enlisted inventor Otis Barton to design what he called a “bathysphere” that would enable two men (Beebe and Barton) to enter inside, be bolted in and lowered to extreme depths.

The bathysphere was a steel cylinder 4.5 feet in diameter and cast from one inch thick steel. On its face was mounted a three inch thick fused quartz window that weighed in at 400 pounds.

On August 15, 1934, Barton and Beebe (age 57) made a world record descent in this ungainly looking contraption to a depth of 3,028 feet off Nonsuch Island in Bermuda. What he saw there was totally unexpected.

Beebe and Barton descended to a place where no human in history had ever seen before. However, it is a place that is not at all odd. It is, in fact, the place that represents the vast majority of planet earth. It was just the first time any human had ever been there, deep in the vast three dimensional void we call Aquatica. Today it is relegated to a curious footnote in human affairs. But it was an event at least as significant as Columbus' footsteps in the new world.

There Beebe and Barton were the first to witness strange creatures with huge gaping mouths and ling fang-like teeth. And nearly all creatures in this abyss came packing their own lights. Here, bioluminsecence of all colors is the rule rather than the exception. “Here there be monsters” was a quote of the ancient mariners writ large over their crude charts. How right they were. And it was William Beebe who first opened that door for all of us to see.

Speaking of argument – we understand and appreciate that all of this is very subjective and can be argued one way or another. But we attempted this evaluation in the most fair way possible, representing the full spectrum of all exploration activities.

Tomorrow, we present the first on our list: The momentous 1911 expeditions of Roald Amundsen and the first human team to reach the South pole.

When I was in high school, the science textbook we used said there were nine known planets – period. Since that time, in our own own solar system, we have discovered more than a handful of others, such as the very distant Sedna orbiting more than twice the distance from the sun as Pluto with a single solar year lasting up to 12,000 years and a surface temperature hovering just above absolute zero. There are others.

But as the Kepler spacecraft will look outward to other star systems, it will begin to add to the catalogue of more than 340 extrasolar planetswe have also, relatively recently discovered. Here is an example of the catalogue description of the extrasolar planet, Gliese 581C:

Gliese 581 C marked a milestone in the search for worlds beyond our solar system. It is the smallest exoplanet ever detected, and the first to lie within the habitable zone of its parent star, thus raising the possibility that its surface could sustain liquid water, or even life. It is 50 percent bigger and 5 times more massive than Earth.

After a successful Kepler mission, there should be many more such as these added to our catalogue of known planets as the mission is designed ot examine more than 100,000 candidate star systems simultaneously.

Finally – the most remarkable thing about all this is that in today’s classrooms, there is a catalogue of planets much larger than the textbook I used that made relative brief mention of only nine!

But one day soon, a group of pioneers will depart the slivers of land on this ocean planet and venture forth into a completely alien world, with no intention of ever returning to live on land.

In the past, we have gone there for voyages, but our hearts and our homes have always been on the shore – dry and relatively safe. Here, all crowded together on our continents where nearly seven billion people have crowded together, struggling and often fighting one another. But there are a few of us who today look outward on a vast and quite empty domain waiting for us. Here on land is a place where we have had no worry about air to breathe or choking on our own waste gasses. We have ventured to other slivers of land to stay. We have ventured to space, but not yet to stay. When the Atlantica II pioneers depart the pier of a small central Florida community in a few years hence, it will be the very first time in all of history, out of a 100 billion living souls, that any have dared to venture into a completely alien world - to stay.

It will be the cultural equivalent of a new epoch of mankind. From that small pier we as human beings will finally leap out of the cradle of civilization that has held us for more than 5,000 years. There we will find ourselves in a world where we have to master not only our shelter but also our air and wall-to-wall protection from a place outside that is totally alien and hostile to our lives.

I have thought about it hundreds of times. What it will be like to board that boat on that pier, surrounded by a small band of pioneers and point our boat due east. About 15 or so miles from shore, the skipper of that boat will help us to board the Dan Scott Taylor submarine waiting for transport to the Challenger Station – the hub of the fist human city on the ocean floor.

After having thought about it countless times, I can only imagine what it will be like to take in the last breath of fresh sea air, watch the sun climb high in the sky over us, and then bid it all goodbye. Our destiny is not here, but down in this vast frontier below. It will be the cradle of a totally new civilization of men and women and children and families. I have thought about the submarine rolling in the swells over the Community of Atlantica below. I have imagined what it will be like to slide into the submarine and close the heavy hatch after me, spinning its wheel and locking it into place.

It is not really difficult to imagine that, since the submarine is already in our possession and since I have made that trip in and out of her many times. And that is what makes this dream so electrifying. It is not a dream. We are holding and building the hardware. It is a reality that is slowly turning into the wind and about to catch the winds of destiny.

I fully plan to skipper the DST II down to the undersea community and dock her safely. There we will exit to our new human community. And there we intend to grow and prosper, commanding the planets greatest resource treasures – a place mostly unknown and seriously underappreciated today, a three dimensional world of vast importance to tomorrow’s generations. Many of them will be born here – the descendants of a new empire of men and women dedicated to the freedoms of our culture and the stewardship of this brave, new world of which we have only made a casual acquaintance.

This describes the voyages and the enterprise of the Atlantica Expeditions. You can read about it in detail in the book, Undersea Colonies. If you are reading these words, please consider joining us!

Dennis Chamberland