Tektite II All-Female Saturation Dive Team
Tektite II was a research project funded by NASA and managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior. In the summer of 1970, an underwater habitat was submerged in Lamashur Bay off St. John Island, U.S. Virgin Islands. Several dive teams lived in the habitat for extended periods of time, conducting research on ocean and human biology.
Tektite II Mission 6-50 was particularly noteworthy for being the first all-female saturation dive team to participate in such a project. Team members included marine biologist Sylvia Earle, biologists and oceanographers Renate True, Ann Hurley Hartline, and Alina Szmant, and electrical engineer Margaret Ann Lucas Bond. The team of "aquanauts" remained underwater for two weeks collecting data for a wide range of research initiatives.
The team's departure for the habitat was an extensively photographed and busy event on the dock at Tektite II basecamp. Their successful return was marked with an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. attended by the Secretary of the Interior. Archived captions on images of the mission and the awards ceremony repeatedly note that the Mission 6-50 scientists are an "all-girl" group.
