A -- BAA 02-01 Submarine Escape, Rescue and Divers Safety Effectiveness Research and Development

BAA 02-01: The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, Coastal Systems Station (NSWC DD COAST SYSTA), Panama City, Florida is soliciting pre-proposals and proposals for applied biomedical research focusing on Submarine Escape, Rescue, Diving Safety, and Effectiveness. The goals of this program are presented in more details below. It is the intent that this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) be opened for a period of two years from the date of this publication (or until 1/22/2004). However, specified dates are given in paragraph (2) below for submission of pre-proposals and proposals to be awarded within FY 2003. (1) Primary Interests This program?s objective is to focus on diving and submarine rescue survivability and escape research that can be rapidly transitioned to fleet capabilities by improved procedures or increased levels of safety and survivability. The typically project will be two years or less although three year projects are considered. The areas of primary interest in submarine escape and rescue are: (1) increasing survival in a disabled submarine to seven days through improved carbon dioxide removal, control of oxygen at non-toxic levels, improved measurement and control of atmospheric contaminants, prevention of pressure build-up, prevention of hypothermia, and improved first aid measures for trauma and illness; (2) extending the capability for escape to depths deeper than 600 feet through improved escape procedures and equipment; (3) extending the capability for rescue under pressure to 5 ATA through novel means to accelerate or eliminate saturation decompression; and (4) improving medical treatment of escape and rescue casualties though improved diagnostic and therapeutic equipment, better definition of surface interval risk, better techniques to triage casualties, non-recompressive treatments of decompression sickness and arterial gas embolism, and techniques for management of hypothermia in hyperbaric chambers. The areas of primary interest in diving safety and effectiveness are: (1) objective diagnostic test(s) for DCS and AGE; (2) prospective and/or retrospective studies of the risk associated with patent foramen ovale (PFO); (3) improving our understanding of the pathogenesis of decompression sickness (DCS) and arterial gas embolism (AGE) in humans though imaging of damaged tissue, non-invasive measurement of intramedulary pressure in bone, measurement of electrophysiological, immunological, and biochemical correlates of DCS and AGE; (4) improving the safety and effectiveness of diving in contaminated water through development of field-deployable screening tests for biologic and chemical contamination, improved laboratory assays for contaminants in salt and brackish water, estimates of the amount of contaminated water inhaled and swallowed with different classes of diving equipment, estimates of chemical absorption rates through wet skin, development of decontamination techniques including rapid decontamination techniques that will allow employment of surface decompression tables, and improved risk assessment and management techniques (Current contaminated water scenarios of greatest interest are fuel oils, human remains, PCB's, and heavy metals); (5) improving ability of free-swimming and tethered divers to operate in thermal extremes (both hot and cold) through improved suit materials, insulating materials, heat exchangers, and heat storage devices, and through physiologic study to determine optimal warming and cooling methods; (6) improving decompression procedures through human studies on the optimal placement of decompression stops and optimal use of oxygen during decompression, use of nitrogen to accelerate decompression from helium-oxygen dives, and quantification of acclimation and "over decompression" phenomena in divers; (7) minimizing the risk of oxygen poisoning through improved understanding of cerebral blood flow / arterial CO2 relationships, improved central n