{"id":10046,"date":"2012-03-29T17:11:04","date_gmt":"2012-03-29T22:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=10046"},"modified":"2012-03-29T17:11:04","modified_gmt":"2012-03-29T22:11:04","slug":"sue-wieber-nourse-plunges-to-bottom-of-atlantic-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=10046","title":{"rendered":"Sue Wieber Nourse Plunges to Bottom of Atlantic Ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Nekton-Beta-SWN-840.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10049\" title=\"Nekton Beta SWN 480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Nekton-Beta-SWN-480.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"830\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Nekton-Beta-SWN-480.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Nekton-Beta-SWN-480-173x300.jpg 173w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>Researcher\u00c2\u00a0Sue Wieber Nourse Exits Nekton Beta<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Turtle Journal co-founder Sue Wieber Nourse is a noted adventurer, researcher, scientist, author and educator.\u00c2\u00a0 We recently rediscovered documentary photographs of Sue&#8217;s exploits as a young\u00c2\u00a0scientist in Woods Hole when she became one of the first women to plunge to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean in the submersible Nekton Beta.\u00c2\u00a0 How does a young USGS biologist\u00c2\u00a0get that privilege?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, when the research vessel reached its ocean target in the midst of a North Atlantic storm, and when all the seasoned scientists turned thumbs down on what they perceived as a recklessly dangerous dive, who you gonna call?\u00c2\u00a0 That&#8217;s right:\u00c2\u00a0 the newly minted USGS scientist with adventurous\u00c2\u00a0attitude and indominable spirit!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Nekton-Beta-NOAA-Picture-1973-840.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10047\" title=\"Nekton Beta NOAA Picture 1973 480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Nekton-Beta-NOAA-Picture-1973-480.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"341\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Nekton-Beta-NOAA-Picture-1973-480.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Nekton-Beta-NOAA-Picture-1973-480-300x213.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>Submersible Nekton Beta<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Yep.\u00c2\u00a0 She dove to the bottom of the Atlantic in this classic, early\u00c2\u00a0model research submersible pictured in\u00c2\u00a0the 1973 NOAA photograph above.\u00c2\u00a0 Her mission was to document the benthic habitat off Georges Bank, which she did with an innovative photographic system.\u00c2\u00a0 The Nekton Beta dives supplemented\u00c2\u00a0her photography through direct observation.\u00c2\u00a0 According to &#8220;<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.psubs.org\/store\/media\/psubs\/busbycd.html\" target=\"_blank\">Manned Submersibles<\/a><\/em>&#8221; by R. Frank Busby, the Nekton Beta measured 15.5 feet long, 5 feet wide and 6 feet high.\u00c2\u00a0 It weighed 2.35 tons with a hatch diameter of 18 inches and maximum life support of 48-man hours.\u00c2\u00a0 It had a two-person crew of pilot and observer, a payload of 450 pounds, and a cruise speed of 1.5 knots for 3.5 hours or maximum speed of 2.5 knots for 1 hour.\u00c2\u00a0 Built by General Oceanographics, the Nekton Beta sported 17 acrylic plastic viewports with 6.5 inch diameter and 1.25 inches thickness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researcher\u00c2\u00a0Sue Wieber Nourse Exits Nekton Beta Turtle Journal co-founder Sue Wieber Nourse is a noted adventurer, researcher, scientist, author and educator.\u00c2\u00a0 We recently rediscovered documentary photographs of Sue&#8217;s exploits as a young\u00c2\u00a0scientist in Woods Hole when she became one of the first women to plunge to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean in the submersible [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[827],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10046"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10046"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10061,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10046\/revisions\/10061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}