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MEMBER PROFILE lab, providing a communications tower with VHF, cellular and wireless antennae as well as generators, air compressors and an umbilical connection to Aquarius for air supply, electricity and communication. In a typical 10-day mission to Aquarius, research teams can do the same amount of work that divers working from the surface would need a month to do. At the end of a mission, a 17-hour decompression prepares aquanauts to return to the surface. Aquarius has been featured on virtually all major television networks as well as PBS, the National Geographic Channel and Discovery Channel. Real-time interactive broadcasts are frequently streamed to museums, science centers, schools and aquariums. Rutten is particularly enthusiastic about the NASA connection and sees a huge potential for synergy between the study of inner space and outer space. There is the obvious opportunity for weightlessness-simulation training, but there is also work being done by systems engineers to better prepare the astronauts to handle technical or mechanical issues that might occur on a space station, far from the ability of land-based experts to effect a repair. Researchers there are also working to refine telesurgery (remote surgery) techniques and tweak payloads that might ultimately be used on the battlefield or in space. There have been live links from Aquarius to the space station over the past five years, enabling astronauts in training to communicate with their peers in space. Rutten is an integral part of a team that supports an average of eight saturation missions per year. In the course of his important work, he’s also fulfilling his own childhood dream of doing marine science in the fabulous Florida Keys. For more information about Aquarius, see www.aquarius.uncw.edu.

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Add your family to your membership, and enjoy benefits for all.

Are you the only diver in your family? Does that mean you’re the only DAN Member? Do you know your family can enjoy the same benefits you do, even if they’re not divers?

For only $55 per year (that’s just $20 more than your $35 individual membership), individual DAN Members can add their family so their spouses, significant others and children can enjoy membership benefits like 24-hour DAN TravelAssist ® and the Member Discount Program (which contains nondiving offers as well). If your nondivers travel with you, they can enjoy using the Worldcue ® Planner and taking advantage of the DAN Trip Insurance program.

Family members can be spouses, cohabitating significant others and children up to the age of 24 (though any child over 18 must be a dependent, full-time student). You know all the benefits of being a DAN Member; now it’s time to share them with your family!

MEMBER BENEFIT

DISCOVER DIVERSITY