The Aquatic Life of Dennis Chamberland

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Dennis Chamberland joined NASA as a bioengineer in the mid ’80s, just as the manned space program was starting to thunder forward. But rather than looking up to the stars, he began looking down – deep down.

As a developer of the agency’s Advanced Space Life Support Systems, which monitors the safety for all off-planet habitation pursuits, Chamberland soon became a lead proponent of research on an idea being floated by NASA at the time: using the sea as a testbed for space exploration. Before long, this homegrown explorer would become one of the country’s leading proponents of undersea habitation, and an advocate for what he calls the “space-ocean analog.”

An aquanaut and Mission Commander on seven NASA underwater missions, Chamberland has also pursued landmark research in bioengineering and become a prolific writer of science books and sci-fi novels.