Curt Newport
Curt Newport (* 1950 ) is an American author and pioneer as a deep-sea underwater robot pilot.
Life
youth
In his teens, Newport was a moderate student who survived doing odd jobs until 1974. Early on in his youth he showed an interest in the ocean and space travel .
The deep sea
In 1974 he got a job as a pilot of unmanned underwater robots. Until 1999 he carried out this work for a wide variety of companies and was involved in many different projects. These were mainly maintenance work on oil rigs , underwater cables, shipwreck visits (including the Titanic ) and salvage companies. He recovered parts of crashed helicopters , crashed aircraft and large parts of the crashed space shuttle Challenger .
In total, Newport has over 4,000 hours of piloting an underwater robot.
The Liberty Bell 7 project
In 1985, he came up with the idea that the spacecraft Liberty Bell 7 of astronaut Gus Grissom could pose, the 1961 successful after his flight and successful splashdown in the Atlantic had been lost since the explosive Luke had an unscheduled blasted himself.
Over the years he tried to research exactly where the capsule had been lost, what internal structure it had, what the condition would be like after almost 40 years in the deep sea and many other things. Various astronauts also helped. a. Tom Stafford and Newport simultaneously solicited financial support from various institutes, companies, television stations, museums and even NASA , which, however, always received negative support, although without exception everyone found the idea of discovering and recovering the capsule interesting.
The discovery and recovery of the Liberty Bell 7
It wasn't until 1998 that the Discovery Channel contacted him, interested in finding and recovering the capsule, but had rejected his company years earlier. The recovery cost was estimated by Newport to be about a million dollars, as special equipment was required and the capsule appeared to be about 6,000 meters deep. A quick discovery was unlikely, as the capsule is many times smaller compared to other underwater objects such as the Titanic .
However, the Discovery Channel funded the daring project, and Newport managed to discover the capsule. An underwater robot was lost, but the capsule was recovered.
The capsule can be viewed today at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center .
Current projects
Since this successful rescue operation, Newport has continued to be in great demand as a pilot, but also as a planner for search and rescue operations in the deep sea. As a wreck hunter, he was involved in several operations, including a. also for the search for the USS Indianapolis , which was unsuccessful.
He was also the expedition leader in the unsuccessful search for the sunken Argentine cruiser General Belgrano , which was sunk in the South Atlantic during the Falklands War .
He is also involved in the development of new underwater robots that should reach even greater depths.
Works
- Lost Spacecraft 2002, Apogee Books. ISBN 1-896522-88-2
See also
- Virgil Grissom
- Mercury Redstone 4
- Mercury program
- List of spacemen
- Records of manned spaceflight
- Robert Ballard
Web links
- Apogee Books website (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Newport, Curt |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American underwater specialist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1950 |