Mail Buoy

January 14 responses:

What is your daily schedule like? What do you do during your free time (besides ping pong)? Do you exercise?  If so, how often?

Janna, Dalton, Max & Becca
Ms. Sheild's classes at Clarke Middle School, Lexington, Mass.

Dear Janna, Dalton, Max, and Becca:

If you’re part of the science team on the ship, you wind up planning your schedule around two things: your experiments in the lab, and your shift in the Jason van (the “control room” for the vehicle). Since Jason is underwater 24 hours a day, we rotate in and out of the van in groups, with different people assigned to four-hour shifts. Mine is from 12am to 4am every day. My job during my shift is to either manage the DVD recording system for the three Jason cameras, or to record a sequence of events that takes place during our shift (what we measured, where we measured it, etc).

In the lab, everybody's experiment works differently, so the time you’ll need to devote to it varies. For the group I work with, we’re trying to measure the growth of bacteria over time, which means that we need to take a sample of the bacteria two to three times per day (usually every eight hours) in order to check in on how it’s doing. Each sample takes about 30 minutes, followed by about an hour of analysis for each one (although sometimes we can take multiple samples and save them to analyze them all at once). We make microscope slides, count bacterial cells, and measure chemical concentrations in the fluid of each sample.

Life on the ship can seem hectic at times, especially because of the sleeping schedule, but after a few weeks we have gotten into a rhythm. I have exercised twice since I got on the ship, since there is is a small gym available, but the exercise made me feel seasick. I know other people like to exercise every day, or every other day, though. In the few instances where I do have free time, I spend it studying for the spring semester or reading on my Kindle.

Thanks for writing,
Matt Rawls
Undergraduate Researcher

How big are your rooms?

Maria
Ms. Sheild's classes at Clarke Middle School, Lexington, Mass.

Dear Maria,

The rooms are small, probably half the size of a college dorm room, but they are actually larger than I was expecting before I came aboard the ship. I share a room with two other scientists—there are two bunk beds on the left side of the room, and one bed on the right side (a top bunk with a desk under it). Some of the rooms only have two bunk beds, however. Our room has access to a bathroom with a toilet and a shower, and we share that with a crew member across the hall. It is a bit like living in a college dorm, but with responsible adults around instead of college kids. For our clothes and other belongings, each person has his or her own metal closet with drawers, which are pretty sizable. Mine fits all of my clothes and my suitcase, with room to spare.  The room also has a mirror and a sink for brushing your teeth, and each bed has a curtain you can pull around it for privacy. You also have your own reading light in your bed.

Best,
Matt Rawls
Undergraduate Researcher

How heavy is Jason? How deep can it go? How long did it take to build? 

Luca, Brendon, Kate, & Charles
Ms. Sheild's classes at Clarke Middle School, Lexington, Mass.

Dear Luca, Brendon, and Charles,

Thanks for writing in with your questions.

Jason weighs 9,000 pounds in air. We can adjust its weight to be whatever we want in the water. I do some math before each dive to figure out how much the science equipment on the vehicle weighs. Then we use ballast weights to make the ROV as buoyant as we need it to be for the depth of the dive. The deeper it's going, the more buoyant it needs to be, because the density of seawater increases as you get deeper. Typically we need Jason to weigh less than nothing (meaning that it's buoyant and will tend to rise upward in the water). Around the depth we're diving now, it should weigh about -60 pounds.

It can dive to 6,500 meters. In the Mariana Trench, we once reached a depth reading of 6,502 meters.

After a few years of development, it took about 6 months to build Jason.

Tito Collasius
Jason Expedition Leader

How does the ROV's engine work/function, and how high is the power output?

Chris
Ms. Sheild's classes at Clarke Middle School, Lexington, Mass.

Good questions, Chris.

Jason has electric motors that spin using electricity. (A long cable transmits electricity from the ship down to Jason and Medea in the water.) The motors turn the vehicle's six thrusters, which have a total of about 21 horsepower.

Tito Collasius
Jason Expedition Leader

Can Jason do anything out of the water? How did Jason get its name?

Abby
Ms. Sheild's classes at Clarke Middle School, Lexington, Mass.

Thanks for your question, Abby.

Jason doesn't do much out of the water except keep us busy with maintenance and repairs to keep it in good working order.

It got its name from the Greek legend of Jason and the Argonauts. Jason was a great explorer.

Tito Collasius
Jason Expedition Leader