He Likes To Be, Under The Sea …

Fabien Cousteau (grandson of Jacques) and five other ocean scientists are spending 31 days living in an underwater habitat off the coast of the Florida Keys. Svati Kirsten Narula interviewed Cousteau about the project before he went under:

Ocean scientists have made enormous strides in underwater research, but the 20th century’s love affair with outer space means we know far more about the moon than we do about the sea floor. Cousteau sees Earth as a “little brown veneer,” compared with the vastness of the sea—and he gets frustrated when people marvel at the Earth’s oceans by saying that 70 percent of the planet is covered by water. “[That’s] talking about the world in a two-dimensional way, and the planet is three-dimensional,” he said. “So if you’re talking about a three-dimensional system, the oceans represent 99 percent of our world’s living space. And yet we’ve explored less than 5 percent of it.”

This is something of a sore subject for ocean scientists, who point out that public funding for space exploration dwarfs the money that undersea researchers get. …

Mission 31 is concerned with how the oceans are changing—namely, what we humans are doing to them. We’ve been using them as a carbon sink, a garbage dump, and simultaneously, a garden from which to harvest. Three broad subjects of study for the Mission 31 scientists are ocean acidification (as it relates to climate change), ocean pollution (with an emphasis on the effects of plastics), and declining biodiversity (attributed to overfishing). This is a bona fide research expedition, but it’s also a publicity stunt. Cousteau wants to drum up enthusiasm for the sea, which helps explain why he’s letting celebrities like rapper will.i.am and billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson dive down to Aquarius for short 45-minute visits, and auctioning off similar experiences to the highest bidders. The idea, Cousteau says, is to spark the interest of a population of people who haven’t previously gotten excited about the ocean—and to change the way they think about the planet.

“It’s really about engaging audiences young and old to dream, to aspire—the way we used to with the Apollo mission.”