1970 Crew member on the Tektite II missions.

Szmant was a member of the Tektite II missions were carried out in 1970. Tektite II comprised ten missions lasting 10 to 20 days with four scientists and an engineer on each mission. One of these missions included the first all-female aquanaut team, led by Dr. Sylvia Earle, along with Dr. Renate True, Ann Hartline, Alina Szmant, and Margaret Ann Lucas. The Tektite II missions were the first to undertake in-depth ecological studies. Tektite II included 24 hour behavioral and mission observations of each of the missions by a team of observers[17] from the University of Texas at Austin. Selected episodic events and discussions were videotaped using cameras in the public areas of the habitat. Data about the status, location and activities of each of the 5 members of each mission was collected via key punch data cards every six minutes during each mission. This information was collated and processed by BellCommand, to be used for the support of papers written about the research concerning the relative predictability of behavior patterns of mission participants in constrained, dangerous conditions for extended periods of time, such as those that might be encountered in crewed spaceflight.

none

Category:
Biology - Marine Biology

Completion Status:
yes

Patent Number:
N/A

Co-Inventor:
none