I worked in oil and gas in a previous life. The absolute wildest people I've ever met are saturation divers - divers who live in pressurized chambers on ships for months at a time to avoid having to decompress after dives. Fantastic money but you need a few screws loose to handle the work.
A tiny population of workers who really make the most use of their 30k+ watches. But jokes aside, probably one of the deadliest jobs no one hears about. Having to live in cramped quarters with no way out for weeks on end. Reduced life expectancy. Incidents happen. People die, or end up severely incapacitated.
Anecdotally, my uncle did this back in the late 80s to 2000s. Towards the end he would make AUD$400-800k a year (depending on how many jobs he took on) which was great money for someone who got into it in his early 20s after dropping out of high school.
The catch was the pressure of the environment, needing to be physically in peak shape (my uncle was an anomaly in lasting in the job until his late 40s), and the danger as he had several colleagues die on the job (worst I heard was due to the operators giving the wrong gas mix to the chamber). My uncle also definitely is a crazy man with a few screws loose, so that part checks out
I have neighbor that did deep commercial diving after he left the military. He was special ops so he was in top physical shape. I never asked how much he made, but he implied it paid extremely well.
But it was extremely dangerous. He didn't develop any long term issues, but he told one story where they suddenly lost a man. There was a quick shadow and then a man was gone. They found a piece of dive suit in the area. They believe it was a giant squid that got their buddy.
> Saturation divers make up to $45,000 – $90,000 per month and over $500,000 annually. They receive “depth pay” which typically pays out an additional $1 – $4 per foot. Usually, it’s $1 per foot up to 100 feet, then it raises up to $2 per foot after that. Income is dependent upon the length and depth of their project plus tenure of the diver.
As it points out, it takes years of experience to get to this point.
> Many go into the commercial diving field with a money mindset, but no one earns a “quick buck.” You have to work your way up the career ladder and take orders from senior divers and maritime business owners.
It's not that good. you may get a huge pay check, but the work leaves lasting impacts months after coming out of it. All sorts of blood and muscle issues start piling up.
And people die all the time. It's more high risk than doing space walks.
Aside from a micro meteor smashing into your face shield. there's very little risk and a lot of oversight in space. Whereas saturation workers are under the ocean with wildlife, and undertaking heavy construction work. It's way more extreme.
I don't think these activities are comparable. Saturation divers are regularly kept under pressures of 9 atmospheres, while astronauts in a space ship or space suit only need protected against atmospheres between 0 and 1. You'd never need something as rugged as a diving bell in space, and bends isn't even a risk. SciFi films often make it seem dramatic and fatal, but explosive decompression of a single atmosphere is survivable, as Kubrick accurately portrays David Bowman surviving such in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In dark(if they are doing saturation there is no sunlight) with possibly horrible visibility. Any underwater work is pretty bad, but saturation takes it to entirely new level.
No way. You'll make more like $700-$1500 per day, but it's not long term employment, it's a contract job for a few weeks to a month at a time. You'd have to have 12 months of work lined up with over time to clear $500k or more. I'm not sure how you could ever hit $1 million in one year. A lot of these divers will only have a couple jobs a year limiting annual income. There are even cases where sat divers compete with each other by giving gifts to project managers at O&G companies in order to line up more work.
These days, remotely controlled underwater vehicles have taken over most the work, especially at the deeper (and higher paying) depths.
