These men lived in Starfish House at the bottom of the Bed Sea.
LIVE UNDERWATER?
You’d be surprised to look out your window and see a parrot fish, a
jellyfish, or a mackerel swim by.
But seeing fish outside his window doesn’t surprise an oceanaut.
Oceanauts are people who work in the sea. So, of course, they are used
to seeing almost all kinds of fish.
Many years ago, some oceanauts from France lived for a month in a steel
structure called Starfish House underwater in the Red Sea.
A ship above Starfish House supplied the oceanauts with air,
electricity, fresh water, food, and telephone lines. The oceanauts
worked underwater several hours a day. They tried to find out more about
fish and other things of the sea that people might use someday for food,
for clothes, and even for medicine.
In the Starfish House laboratory, the oceanauts tested rocks and
minerals. And, in the darkroom, they developed films of the pictures
they took.
Starfish House was one of the first underwater laboratories. Now there
are others. Every year, scientists explore the oceans and seas, hoping
to solve some of the mysteries there.
Today, we get most of our food, clothing, medicine, and building
materials from the land. But when you grow up, maybe people will get
many of these things from the sea.
This is Starfish House.
Oceanauts explore the area around Starfish House.
