SEA LAB RETROSPECTIVE

Here is a picture of the cover of a model kit for SEALAB III in 1969. 26 years later Captain Bill Searle wrote to John Craven. He said "Almost two years ago, I wrote you a letter concerning SEALAB -- a retrospective Symposium. In case you haven't a copy I enclose one. I have sent you a couple of ticklers. To none of these have you had the courtesy of responding -- either by phone, FAX, or letter.

What's the matter with you John?

are you ill? Or just ill mannered?
The letter was well deserved. Bill Searle as Supervisor of Salvage played the major role in the recovery of the H-Bomb Recovery. He was responsible for the development of the Navy's Advanced Diving System which was tested at SeaLab III and which has performed magnificently in the decades that followed. Indeed he played a major, if not the major role in every salvage and salvage capability event of the United States Navy during his assignment. Who would not wish to participate in a retrospective symposium unless he was ill or ill mannered. Here was my response.
WELL YES, I have a fatal disease called old age. My useful life expectancy is no more than 15 years (about the same as someone diagnosed as HIV positive). How do I budget my time. Each moment is devoted to recollections of things past, the reality of the moment and the expectations of the future. The social pressure is on me to participate in 50 year anniversaries of college, marriage, the end of war, graduate degrees and the start of an underseas oceanic career. The social pressure is now on me to participate in 25 year anniversaries of the H Bomb recovery, the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle, SEALAB, the NR-1 and newly revealed underwater feats of Naval Intelligence. In this phase of my life Bill Searle was not only a fellow conspirator he was also my role model for mastery of the technology of the sea.
Today the social pressure is on me to innovate with floating cities and deep ocean water and law of the sea and to prepare the young for tomorrow.
HOW CAN I (or anyone) COPE WITH THIS COMPLEXITY?

Each Birthday I make a Beyes Subjective estimate of the probability that I will not survive the next year and an estimate of the probability that I will live a vigorous life, (as I do now,) for the next ten years. I add these two probabilities together and subtract from 100 % to obtain the probability that I will live forever (i. e. more than ten years.) Even today the first of these figures is small - on the order of magnitude of one percent. The second figure is high but I will let others make the estimate. I now multiply these probabilities by 365 and obtain the number of days and hours I spend each year doing those things I would do if I knew I was going to die in one year or ten or more.
This letter is one of those things I would write if I knew I was going to die in the coming year and I would broadcast it far and wide, as I do here. But my valedictory budget for the year 1996 was disappearing and my ten year program was in full swing.
On June 14 and 15 1996 the Common Heritage Corp. held a rededication event at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii and simultaneously 24 hours a day around the world on the world wide web. It was a rededication of the CHC mission "the management of innovation for the benefit of the Common Heritage. The next day the event was emblazoned on the index page of the Common Heritage Web Page. All were invited to participate.
A special invitation to Bill Searle and all of the SeaLab crew. At 0700 - 0800 HNL on the 14th (1400 DCA) the rededication substance of the Web related to Washington and the role of the Navy. One or more web parties was organized for like minded individuals to congregate about the web and to interpolate cogent remarks. How about the Cosmos Club? They didn't have access to the web. They should do so immediately. They may have already done so. Tomorrow may be too late.
So, dear old friend you are ever in my heart and mind as role model for mastery of the sea. In about 10 to 15 years my information budget will open up and I will be ready for retrospective symposia any day, anytime and anywhere, health and wealth permitting.
In the meantime:
CENTER> Come browse mypage with me
The best is yet to be
The last of life
for which the first was made.