Craig B. Cooper[1] (born September 8, 1949) is a professional aquanaut from the United States who served from 1991 to 2010 as Operations Manager for the Aquarius Reef Base underwater habitat.

The University of North Carolina Wilmington contacted Cooper in December 1990 after acquiring the Aquarius underwater laboratory.

In January 1991 Cooper began managing the refurbishment of Aquarius in drydock prior to its deployment at its present site in the Florida Keys in 1993.

[3] As Operations Manager at Aquarius for the National Undersea Research Center (NURC), Cooper supervised the daily activities of the underwater habitat.

[11][12][13] In April 2005, Cooper served as a habitat technician during the NEEMO 8 mission, the crew of which lived underwater for three days.

[20] In a blog entry written in 1999, Cooper wrote of his fellow Aquarius topside personnel and habitat technicians, "If the scientists are the astronauts, these guys are the junior Bob Barths.