I am a huge fan of the Mercury and Apollo astronauts, NASA, and JFK because the people involved and the time period is certainly romantic. But even a "Hold my beer" redneck moment could have an interesting back story full of personal, political, and societal drama and involve parties other than the guy who decides, "I'll show 'em."
The experience isn't a cheap 24 hours of adventure, but I highly recommend spending enough time in Jules' Undersea Lodge to become an official aquanaut by satisfying both the definition and the intent of the title if you are a NASA fan.
First, it's legit. Stays are still logged as missions as part of the habitat's ongoing overall mission. Ian Koblick was a Tektite 1 & 2 aquanaut who designed the La Chalupa underwater habitat for its missions off Puerto Rico in the early 1970s refitted the habitat and marketed it as an underwater hotel. It's not. As a hotel, it serves no purpose whatsoever. When staying at Howard Johnson's in Key Largo, you are free to just leave your room and go about your business like any hotel guest. You are definitely locked into the Jules' experience not far removed from being locked into a space mission - with the exception that if you really wanted to you could just swim up, flip mission control the bird, and go get your own pizza.
What Jules' does do is fulfill the dream of men like Jacques Cousteau and Ian Koblick to have the average Joe and Jane reside underwater. The reality of that dream, however, would require way too much support and maintenance to make a subsea version of "The Jetsons" or "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" possible. The reason the habitat is located in a lagoon and not on the reef like Aquarius is the cost to operate.
When we think of an "aquanaut," we think of well-educated and trained scientists like Sylvia Earle. NASA has used and continues to use both Aquarius and Jules' for various things such as team-building and crew studies. For the reef environment (or the environment in Emerald Lagoon), many of us here in SB have far better training and experience on OC and CCR scuba than most scientific and NASA divers. Watching video of NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab makes me cringe because any decent doubles instructor will lose his or her mind over the position of the tank bands on their cylinders alone. Sure, a NASA aquanaut/astronaut might have advanced degrees from top schools like M.I.T., but couldn't pass a GUE-F course, PSAI Cavern course, or CCR course taught by someone like Superlyte27 without putting in the blood, sweat, and tears to actually be a decent diver.
Of course, the habitat is open to even people who can pass a PADI Discover Scuba course, and one doesn't need to be an IANTD Cave CCR diver to venture into history. Yes, you'll be part of history. I want to return for a 3rd mission and spend 3 days inside enjoying a unique R&R by reading as much of the logbook as I can between excursion dives. The log is an amazing journal of a "George Washington Slept Here" cross-section of famous astronauts, divers, politicians, artists, musicians, celebrities, people we know in the industry, and unknowns whose only mark on history will be well-written thoughts included in the pages of the most unique guest registry on or under the surface of the planet.
You'll be able to hang out in your favorite jeans or sweats, watch TV, listen to music, talk to friends from the seafloor, and make excursion dives. If you are down there, please call the Westwinds Motel in Clayton, NY, so Astronaut Doug Hurley's mother (the owner) can talk to a diver underwater as she did her son in space for a dual experience. I mean to do that, but might not get there anytime soon. Before the landline phone was installed, I used the same phone used by aquanauts to talk to astronauts in the ISS to call my mom. Our crew (my cave diver/scuba instructor girlfriend and I) also received the first wrong number call answered underwater after a landline was installed. A woman was looking for Hector Gonzalez and thought my girlfriend was lying when pressing her for information on Mr. Gonzalez only to be told she was talking to two divers 30 feet below the surface.
The experience might connect the adult in you with the kid in you. I used to teach courses in the Emerald Lagoon at Key Largo Undersea Park and was able to pop up inside to check out the habitat's wet room with students quite often. I didn't think there would be much to a night's stay other than boredom. But, when Jen Hellman and I did Missions #4005 and #4109 it was as fun for me as combining DEMA with the Living Seas with cave diving.
If you reach 24 hours or more, you will be an aquanaut and the closest thing to an astronaut you might ever get. Some might scoff because you didn't graduate from FSU with a marine biology degree and find the funding for some study you dreamed up just to get a chance to be an aquanaut in Aquarius, but the Cousteaus and the Koblicks of the world wanted *you* to be experiencing life underwater and not just have Innerspace be the playground of scientists.
