A memoir of a young man’s dream of space flight and deep diving, Bending Atmospheres is a dazzling adventure recounting daring, heroic professionals learning to work at undersea pressures to 1,000 feet sea water and in the vacuum of orbital space traveling at 18,000 miles an hour. Readers are taken through the early development of deep diving tri-mix, nitrox and neon diving gas mixtures and decompression tables, to early diving in the treacherous North Sea, National Geographic expeditions seeking famed sunken treasure, and methods used to train astronauts for space walks to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
“Bold, daring, exciting adventures—fraught with danger befitting James Bond—are at the heart of this valuable contribution to the literature of how humans developed techniques, protocols, and different breathing gas mixtures for survival, working, and exploration in both the deep sea and space environment by one of the men directly involved in those developments.” —Bernie Chowdhury, noted author of The Last Dive
“If you are in the diving world Bending Atmospheres is a MUST-READ book. If you are a technical diver, it is even more of a must-read. Everything we do today in advanced and technical diving is because of Glenn Butler, Dr. Bill Hamilton, Dave Kenyon, and Hans Schreiner. For Glenn to put this incredible story to print makes is all the more special.” —Joel Silverstein, Diving Technologist
“This is an engrossing story about discovery, adventure success and failure from the man who personally experienced the events. The way that the narrative is constructed from snippets from from the author's past interwoven with more contemporary events is interesting and gives a window on his past as well as his work in the present. I recommend the book to anyone who has an interest in deep sea diving, space exploration and hyperbaric therapies.” —D Bertels
”Extremely entertaining and refreshingly personal, highly recommended!” —Susan Joiner
“The cast of charters that Glenn worked with, the included technical information, and how technology developed for underwater gets used in the space program is an intriguing story. Very few people know this part of history. I could not put this riveting book down.” —Larry Cohen
(A special thank you to Glenn Butler for the suggestion.)